


where angels fear to tread

by hakyeonni



Series: little incubus [19]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Succubi & Incubi, Blood Drinking, Blood and Violence, Blow Jobs, Existential Angst, Forgiveness, M/M, Major Character Injury, Smut, Vampires, also sanghyuk tops hongbin... finally, taekbin friendship (of sorts)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 19:26:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15713556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakyeonni/pseuds/hakyeonni
Summary: the story of an angel who clung to life, and the vampire who would not kill him.or, how hongbin comes to see that the world is just endless shades of grey, and neither right nor wrong are set in stone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> not much to say on this one guys. existentialism. blow jobs. forgiveness. hongbin learns that the world is not black or white. taekwoon comes to grips with what it means to be human. sorry it took so long. etc etc

_for fools rush in where angels fear to tread_  
-Alexander Pope

 

The blood fills him, and brings with it life.

He’s never quite forgotten the taste of Taekwoon’s blood he had back on the rooftop ten years ago. It was the most invigorating thing he’s ever tasted, and that was after it had been left to cool and sit outside for hours. He remembers thinking at the time that he couldn’t comprehend what drinking from Taekwoon directly would taste like, didn’t even _want_ to imagine it. Now that he has the real thing in his arms, he finds he cannot bring himself to stop.

Taekwoon’s blood is life itself. The energy that’s fizzing through his veins is almost too much for him, too overwhelming; it sates his hunger nearly as quickly as it saps it, leaving him a trembling mess. It’s light and sunshine and love— _love_ , why can Hongbin taste love in Taekwoon’s blood when it’s clearly not something he’s familiar with? But it’s there, as sure as the feeling of Taekwoon slowly growing colder and colder underneath his hands, as real as the condensation on Taekwoon’s breath as he exhales, shuddering. This blood is everything good in the world, light and love and laughter and everything the complete opposite of Taekwoon that his head spins trying to comprehend it all—and then it stops spinning and starts hurting, because as his wounds heal he swims back to himself and starts to see, flashes of what it’s like to be in Taekwoon’s head— _fuck_.

He drops Taekwoon like he’s been stunned, and Taekwoon doesn’t resist, just crumples to the ground at Hongbin’s feet and lies there, shivering. “Don’t stop,” he rasps, looking up at Hongbin, one hand palpating the wound on his neck and holding his fingers in front of his face as if to see the blood—blood he’s surrounded by, blood Hongbin still wants to fucking drink, as if he hasn’t had enough. “You can’t stop...”

“Don’t touch me,” Hongbin hisses, backing away because he’s not sure he can control himself from draining every last drop from Taekwoon if he doesn’t stop pleading, if the blood doesn’t stop leaking from him. He can’t be an angel. He can’t be. He must be a demon, sent straight from Hell to test Hongbin. The reality of what he’s just done, what he wants to do, settles in, and he feels like being sick.

Taekwoon pushes himself upright, but he’s swaying and pale. Hongbin took too much. “Please,” he begs, and with a start Hongbin realises that his eyes are no longer black. Instead they’re human eyes, ordinary (if a little bloodshot) eyes that give far too much away. Something in Hongbin’s stomach twists. “Please don’t stop. You have to—” he sags forward into Hongbin’s arms, turning his head so the still-leaking neck wound is offered up to him like a gift. “Please kill me. Please end it.”

Fury flashes through him, white-hot and sharp. _This_ is what Taekwoon wants? To die? _This_ is why he’s reappeared in Hongbin’s life like a nightmare he can never really escape from? The temptation to sink his fangs in once more is so overwhelming he starts shuddering with need, but instead of giving into it he grabs Taekwoon by the neck and flings him away.

They are standing in the middle of a road, with the nearest building a good five or six metres away. Ordinarily a throw like that would send Taekwoon a few metres away at best; Hongbin wasn’t straining. But Taekwoon flies through the air and crashes through the window of the coffee shop to Hongbin’s right, the shattering of the glass breaking the quiet of the night. When he heads towards the shop he realises with horror that Taekwoon didn’t just go through the glass; he’s slammed up against the wall _on the other side of the coffee shop_ , so hard that he’s left a human-shaped dent in the plaster, a trail of debris in his wake. Glass crackles underneath Hongbin’s shoes as he steps carefully over the threshold, eyes wide.

“There’s power in my blood,” Taekwoon coughs, stirring; Hongbin flinches, unaware he was even still alive. “You should have realised that, with how intuitive you are. Or so I’m told.”

“Shut up,” Hongbin snarls.

He grabs Taekwoon’s hand and pulls him to his feet. Before giving him a chance to resist, though, he flicks his wrist and sends Taekwoon flying out into the street once more. He hits the asphalt with a _thump_ , rolls and spits blood, but Hongbin’s already there, fangs bared.

“Don’t you think I’ve been punished enough?” Taekwoon wheezes as Hongbin holds him up, seeing as he can’t stand under his own power now. He looks horrid. He’s pale as a ghost, shudders running through his body, and there’s blood all over him. A _demon_. “Just end it all.” When Hongbin doesn’t say anything, he tips his head forward and smiles, and with a shock Hongbin flinches. He still has his fangs, although the tip of one has been broken off. “Can’t bring yourself to do it, little vampire? Do I have to remind you of what I did to your maker? To your boyfriend? Killing him was—”

“I said shut _up!_ ” Hongbin shrieks, and slams Taekwoon into the road.

How he does not die Hongbin doesn’t know. A blow like that to a human would have split their skull open, especially because when Hongbin focuses his rage-blurred vision he can see the asphalt beneath Taekwoon is cracked. His head swims as he regards the damage, hands shaking from where they’re grasped in the fabric of Taekwoon’s shirt. He always had strength, but this… this is strength beyond what any vampire has. The fact that it’s stolen only makes him feel worse.

“Do it,” Taekwoon rasps, and coughs. Hongbin feels blood splatter his face. “Fucking do it. Rip my head off. Even I can’t heal from that. You know you want to.”

Hongbin does, with every fibre of his being. Vengeance is rushing through his body, fueled by Taekwoon’s blood; this is the right thing, the righteous thing, the _good_ thing. Taekwoon wants to die. He _needs_ to die. Hongbin knows this. That’s why he has one hand wrapped around Taekwoon’s throat, the other tangled in his hair, ready to twist and pull. It will be so easy. Should have been done a long time ago. He tightens his fist.

It’s the blood that distracts him, at first. That’s what makes his vision go blurry, the haze of bloodlust settling around his world. When he shakes his head to clear it, growling, and focuses again, he nearly drops Taekwoon. Because it’s not that there’s something so mortal about him, splattered in his own blood and looking pleadingly up at Hongbin with those too-human eyes; it’s not that. It’s the fact that Hongbin looks, and he _sees_ , and his stomach turns.

He still remembers ten years ago, can still picture it clearly in his mind—the way he’d seen Taekwoon lying there naked amongst the ruins of his own wings, and then how he’d _seen_ Taekwoon. It was the most horrific thing. Hakyeon had ripped Taekwoon’s soul away from him and left nothing but a void where it once was, his very self violated and plundered and left vacant. It was like looking into a black hole, so horrible Hongbin had felt himself becoming sick at the sight of it—ancient and lonely, something that should never, ever be seen or felt. He couldn’t comprehend at the time what it would be like to be left with a wound like that, a wound unable to be observed and therefore unable to be understood. Now he doesn’t have to wonder. It hits him once more, that feeling of wrongness, so strong he retches and loosens his hand from Taekwoon’s hair, his head pounding. He needs to get away, he needs to go. He can’t look at Taekwoon any longer or he’s going to start crying.

Taekwoon catches his wrist and immediately Hongbin feels him in his mind, a violation of the highest order. It only last a moment before he rips himself away, but whatever Taekwoon sees in there makes him pale, his eyes going wide, and then he’s on his knees, still alive even after everything Hongbin’s done to him, after everything they’ve done to him, and he’s—he’s crying.

“Please,” he sobs, gets to his feet, takes a staggering step towards Hongbin before his legs give way and he collapses on the ground, looking small and pitiful and oh, Hongbin feels sorry for him, because for a flash he’d seen the inside of Taekwoon’s mind.

Loneliness. That’s all there was.

“Please,” Taekwoon sobs again, curling up into a ball. “Please, you have to kill me, please, I can’t—I can’t do this anymore, I can’t—”

 _It’s putting an animal out of its misery_ , Hongbin tells himself as he kneels next to Taekwoon, vision blurred with tears of sympathy. He cups Taekwoon’s cheek, turns his head; Taekwoon reaches for him, a muttered prayer falling from his lips (“—though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me—”), and never before has Hongbin felt like benediction. _I’ll do it fast. He won’t feel a thing. This is for the best._

He stills his hands on Taekwoon’s cheeks, ready to twist and break his neck, to end it all. But before he can move another inch Taekwoon flinches, his back arching, mouth opening in a soundless scream, and Hongbin’s flung away from him in an eruption of power so mighty it sears the back of his eyelids. All he can see as he tumbles head-over-foot is what he saw for a fraction of a second before Taekwoon exploded: the image of him wreathed in lavender and with huge white wings, the very picture of what he once was.

His skin feels strangely hot wherever the power touched him, like ghostly handprints left behind, echoes of lavender and something else he can’t identify pressed into his skin, a brand. He staggers to his feet, hunched over in case this is an attack, but Taekwoon is exactly where Hongbin left him, curled up in a ball and languishing in a puddle of his own blood. At first Hongbin thinks he’s dead, but when he crouches down he can see Taekwoon’s chest rising and falling shallowly, blood gurgling in his lungs; he’s alive. Just.

The lavender is gone. Hongbin is once more staring into a black hole shaped like a man, and before he can think too closely about what the hell he’s doing he leans down and scoops Taekwoon into his arms—he weighs next-to-nothing, a bag of bones clutched to his chest—and runs through the night. He doesn’t know if he’s doing the right thing. He doesn’t even know what right is, anymore. But all he can feel when he closes his eyes is what it was like in Taekwoon’s mind, the vast emptiness of it all, mirroring the way he feels to look at. Perhaps it’s this that keeps Hongbin running. Or perhaps it’s the way his blood had tasted, like raw power at its most base form.

Or maybe he’s just lost his fucking mind.

//

The apartment smells so strongly of dust that Hongbin nearly starts coughing when he shoulders his way inside and flicks on a light. He hasn’t been here in years, but it looks just the same: lit only by a single bulb that flickers precariously and furnished with threadbare furniture that he’d picked up off the street, just a ratty old sofa and a chair and table. There’s not even a bed, so he dumps Taekwoon on the sofa and turns away, trying to collect his thoughts.

This was a mistake. This is the biggest mistake of his life, and it’s been a pretty long one; just imagining the look on Sanghyuk’s face or, worse, Hakyeon’s if they found out has him shuddering—no. It cannot happen. They can’t know. He needs to end it here and now, to do what he could not out in the street. Taekwoon does not deserve to live another minute.

Except, of course, that in a confined space like this the scent of his blood is overpowering, unbelievably so.

Hongbin turns with hunched shoulders and bared fangs, intending to storm over to the sofa and tear Taekwoon limb from limb—drink his blood after he’s dead, it’s not like it matters—only to see Taekwoon sitting up, hand held to his head and brow furrowed. “What?” he mutters to himself. When he lays eyes on Hongbin, the shock that runs through him is visible on his eerily-human face; like this, his emotions are all-too easy to read, fear-confusion-amusement-anger all at once. “Why didn’t you kill me?” he asks simply.

Hongbin can’t answer that.

He narrows his eyes. “Where are we?”

Hongbin _won’t_ answer that.

“Does the incubus know about this place?” Taekwoon continues with a leer, and Hongbin doesn’t know, or care to know, if he’s referring to Sanghyuk or Hakyeon. It doesn’t matter.

“Shut up,” he hisses, taking a menacing step closer that immediately backfires when a new wave of bloodlust hits him.

The longing must be visible on his face, because Taekwoon sits back on the sofa and folds his arms over his chest in a distinctly human gesture that makes Hongbin raise his eyebrows. He’s been studying. “Am I to be your blood slave? Is that it? Because I would rather you just kill me outright—”

“Shut up!” He’d intended to sound commanding, but instead he’s screaming, and Taekwoon obliges, cringing back into the sofa like he’s actually afraid. Perhaps he is. “Shut the fuck up and let me _think_ —”

“No, I don’t think I will.” Taekwoon’s on his feet in a flash, and now it’s Hongbin’s turn to be afraid. He’s thin and pale and bleeding, but just for a second he’d looked every bit the angel he used to be—and Hongbin can still picture him the way he must have looked that night he took Sanghyuk’s life. “I deserve an explanation as to why you’ve brought me here.”

“You don’t deserve anything,” Hongbin replies stiffly, trying to resist the urge to take a step backwards, because he knows that if he shows any sign of weakness Taekwoon will no doubt try to manipulate it.

“I—” Taekwoon starts, but that’s as far as he gets before he screams and folds. It’s the only way Hongbin can describe it. His bones crack and his body contorts itself into positions it was clearly never made to be in, and all Hongbin can do is watch in horror as Taekwoon writhes, fingers scrabbling against the threadbare carpet, eyes rolled back so all Hongbin can see is his sclera.

He sees. He sees white wings and lavender, even though Taekwoon is still bleeding and broken, and without even thinking he drops into a crouch and places a soothing hand on Taekwoon’s forehead, trying so desperately to comfort even though a distant part of his mind—the sane part, probably—is screaming at him to stop. “Hush,” he murmurs, because Taekwoon’s sobbing now, with pain or something else he doesn’t know. “It’s okay.”

It’s clearly not, and Hongbin wishes he knew what was happening so he could help. He winces from that thought as soon as it runs through his mind, and his hand falls from Taekwoon’s clammy forehead immediately. “Please make it stop,” Taekwoon’s saying, but Hongbin doesn’t answer. “Please please make it stop—”

“I don’t know how,” he says somewhat helplessly as Taekwoon reaches for him blindly.

Taekwoon screams as another wave of power crackles through him. He looks like he’s possessed, like there’s a demon trying its best to claw its way free of his body; maybe there is, Hongbin doesn’t know. He’s hardly an expert on this. Taekwoon’s an enigma, now more than ever, and he can’t do anything but sit and watch in horror as Taekwoon writhes, flashes of lavender lighting him up from the inside out. It’s almost like his body is trying to heal but can’t. “Yes you do,” he gasps, opening his eyes to reveal that he’s burst all the blood vessels. He stares up at Hongbin with unseeing, blood-filled eyes, sweat dripping down his forehead to fall on the filthy carpet. “Please kill me.”

Hongbin’s never had anyone beg for death before. Most of his victims ask for the opposite; they want to live, so badly he can taste it in the adrenaline that colours their blood when he drinks from them. But this? It’s horrible, but he can’t do it, he can’t, even though he knows Taekwoon deserves it, even though he knows it’s the right thing to do, even though he’s asking for it, even though all Hongbin can see when he closes his eyes is Sanghyuk’s face—

“No,” he growls, scooting backwards across the carpet away from Taekwoon. “I won’t. I can’t.”

“Is that really the kind of man you are?” Taekwoon gasps, although the worst of the pain seems to be over, for now; Hongbin can no longer see lavender and instead senses nothing. “Is this what my punishment is? To suffer like this, for eternity? I cannot die, vampire. I’ll still be begging for death even as the Earth turns to dust around you.”

“I’m not doing it to punish you.”

Taekwoon crawls towards him, looking so pitiful that Hongbin shudders. He’s full, sloshing with blood, and yet the scent of it is driving him slightly mad. He needs to leave, right now, or else he won’t be able to hold himself back from biting Taekwoon again. “Then why are you doing it?” he rasps, and then he’s practically in Hongbin’s lap. “If you’re not going to kill me, let me sleep. Please.”

Hongbin doesn’t really know what he’s asking for until Taekwoon turns his head and trails a bloody hand over his neck, tearing at the wounds Hongbin’d made earlier so they start weeping blood once more. There’s so much of it everywhere—his back, his legs, now his neck—and the sight of crimson on the pale of his skin proves too much for Hongbin. He lifts Taekwoon up in his arms to cradle him, the gentle touch such a contrast to the way he bites into his neck, not bothering to glamour him and not holding back, not even sure if he can.

//

He waits until he feels the sun about to burst free of the horizon, and then he runs.

He’s spent the last two hours showering in the tiny bathroom—he didn’t bother to feign surprise when he turned the taps and water actually came pouring out; he wasn’t sure it would—and then trying to scrub the blood from the carpet, although he’s not sure why. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a shitty safehouse.

Taekwoon sleeps, and Hongbin avoids looking at him—at the gentle rise and fall of his chest that rattles with betrayal, and at the reality that he has just created.

He runs through the streets in the pale light of pre-dawn, urgency tugging at his bones, pushing him forward even if part of him wants to stop and lie down in the road and let the light claim him. He makes it inside just in time and sags against the wall of the lift as it whisks him upwards towards Sanghyuk, a hand on his chest like his heart is actually racing. He can’t do this. He can’t do this. He can’t walk in there and lie to Sanghyuk, but he can’t tell him the truth, either, because they finally have peace and Hongbin would rather die than be the one to rip that away from him again.

“Binnie?” Sanghyuk groans as Hongbin tiptoes into the bedroom. “Are you okay? It’s dawn.”

If he closes his eyes, it helps. “Yeah, I just lost track of time,” he lies as he slides into bed beside Sanghyuk, and swallows thickly. The taste of deception is horribly bitter on his tongue, but Sanghyuk can’t sense it, because he rolls over and kisses Hongbin flush on the mouth and sighs happily.

“Don’t do that again,” he murmurs sleepily, and burrows his head into Hongbin’s chest. “Don’t scare me.”

Eyes still closed, Hongbin forces himself to pull Sanghyuk close, to go through the motions so he won’t be found out. “I won’t,” he promises, but it sounds desperately hollow.

//

It’s all too easy to forget when he wakes to Sanghyuk curled around him, the weight of him warm and comforting and headily familiar. For a few minutes he is content to lie there, complicit in nothing but the love he feels radiating from Sanghyuk, mind empty of everything except contentedness. “Good morning,” he croaks, and stirs to sit up. “Did you—”

And it all hits him. He’s not really sure how he could have forgotten, except that maybe he wanted to forget. But he’s not sure he can, because he somehow knows what Sanghyuk is going to say, just _knows_. He doesn’t even have to look to see the way he’s sleepily concerned, eyebrows drawing together and lips forming a small pout.

“Hongbin hyung? Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Hongbin lies, turning to Sanghyuk and kissing him softly on the forehead, his mind reeling because _how did he know what Sanghyuk was going to say before he said it?_ His gift has never extended to intuition, or at least not intuition on this level. All he’s been able to do is see colours. But see the future? What the _fuck?_

“Don’t forget we have Wonshik hyung’s birthday party tonight,” Sanghyuk sighs, clambering out of bed and stretching, t-shirt riding up to reveal his belly. “Not that we could forget, I suppose.”

Hongbin grimaces and looks away, guilt washing over him in waves. Hakyeon has been on the warpath for the past fortnight, planning a party that Hongbin’s sure Wonshik won’t really appreciate, considering it’s not even his birthday. It’s just an excuse for Hakyeon to spend stupid amounts of money on decorations and alcohol—although why he needs an excuse for this no one seems to know—but what had seemed like a mildly annoying social engagement now seems like something dangerous. Taekwoon’s blood is clearly still affecting him, and if it’s as potent as it seems to be, he has no doubt that Wonshik will be able to sense it. And that’s not even considering Jaehwan. Hongbin doesn’t even want to think about it.

“Hey,” Sanghyuk murmurs, crawling back onto the bed to loop his arms around Hongbin’s shoulders. “You okay? You seem kinda distant this morning.”

A shard of glass slides in between his ribs, the cut razor-sharp and agonising, because nothing he’s ever been through has hurt like this. He’s never lied to Sanghyuk before, not like this, not about something big. And yet, to be the one to make his world come crashing down around him—Hongbin can’t do it. Maybe that means he’s weak. It almost certainly means he’s a coward. But he can’t do it.

“I’m fine,” he says, leaning into the comfort of Sanghyuk’s arms. It’s disgustingly easy to force a smile that looks natural, to turn his head and kiss Sanghyuk on the cheek. He is horrified at himself. “Yesterday’s feed was difficult, is all.”

Sanghyuk stills. “You didn’t… kill anyone, did you?”

“Of course not,” he murmurs, painfully aware of the irony of it all. “You know I don’t do that.”

The words hang unspoken in the air before them, invisible to Sanghyuk but painfully visible to Hongbin, damning in their truth: _but I should have._

//

It’s not the first party of Hakyeon’s they’ve gone to (and Hongbin knows it most certainly won’t be their last), but when the door opens to reveal Hakyeon with a comically large martini glass in hand, a feather boa wrapped around his neck, and wearing a pink t-shirt that says _I don’t look a day over 397!_ , Hongbin maybe wonders if they’ve walked into a rather horrifying alternate universe.

“What is _that?”_ Sanghyuk gasps as he points at the shirt, beating Hongbin to the punch.

Hakyeon grins, so wide and so blinding Hongbin nearly squints on instinct. It’s that magical smile of his, the one he uses to get his way, and even though Hongbin knows what it is it’s still so hard to resist. “I have one for everyone! Come on—”

And then they’re being dragged across the threshold before a tshirt is thrust into their hands. Hakyeon stands over them as they inspect them, Hongbin holding his between forefinger and thumb like he’s not sure it’s not going to leap up and bite him. His is a screaming red that says _I don’t look a day over 107!_ and Sanghyuk’s, a garish green, says _I make being immortal look easy._

“I couldn’t have yours say _I don’t look a day over ten_ because that’s creepy,” Hakyeon offers to Sanghyuk when they both look up at him in horror.

That’s almost certainly not what Hongbin was concerned about—he’s more concerned about going blind from having to stare at these shirts all night, actually—and instead of replying he just folds the tshirt in half and thrusts it at Hakyeon. “Have you actually lost your mind?”

“What? It’s fun! It’s Wonshik’s birthday, after all—”

“It’s not his real birthday, idiot,” Sanghyuk snipes. “You just wanted an excuse to throw a party—”

“And so what if I did! Life’s too short not to have any fun—”

“We’re _immortal_ —”

Their bickering is silenced by Jaehwan wandering in, wearing one of Hakyeon’s heinous tshirts and carrying a bottle of vodka; his shirt is plain black and says _I don’t look a day over approximately 1500!_ in sparkly print. “Oh, hey,” he says nonchalantly, and wanders towards the kitchen, like this is just an ordinary occurrence—and honestly, with Hakyeon, maybe it is.

Hongbin stiffens, his world sharpening down to the sound of Jaehwan’s heartbeat, slow and steady. He waits for a cry, for the drawing of a sword, for his world to fall down around him—surely he must recognise Taekwoon’s signature, _surely_. But there’s no cry. Jaehwan’s heartbeat stays steady, not even skipping a beat, and Hongbin wills himself to relax. He hasn’t noticed. _He hasn’t noticed._

“I’m not wearing this,” Hongbin says eventually, still holding the shirt at arm’s length, turning back to Hakyeon. “You can’t make me.”

 _“Please,”_ Hakyeon wheedles, and Hongbin wonders if maybe he _did_ lose his mind on his trip. On the other hand, this sort of bullshit is exactly his MO. It just doesn’t usually come in such an offensive form. “I got them made specially!”

“And by that he means he shapeshifted them on,” Jaehwan says, reappearing from the kitchen with two more martini glasses. “So I guess that’s still true.”

“Please wear them. It won’t be fun if you don’t,” Hakyeon says, still pouting, and Hongbin knows they’ve lost when Sanghyuk sighs and pulls his own tshirt over his head. He is endlessly weak to Hakyeon’s charms.

Hongbin follows suit, wincing as he looks down at himself. “I’d love to see you get Wonshik in one of these,” he mumbles, before taking the glass from Jaehwan, still wary, and downing the drink in one go.

As it turns out, Wonshik is just as weak to Hakyeon’s wiles as the rest of them, apparently, because it only takes a solid ten minutes of wheedling before he finally relents and pulls it over his head, grumbling the whole time in typical Wonshik fashion. He then proceeds to slam back five cocktails in a row as the rest watch on in horror—Hongbin from the other side of the room, terrified—before wandering into the kitchen to heat up some blood, leaving everyone slightly stunned at his change of heart.

Hongbin’s drinking more and more out of nervousness, which means by the time Wonshik notices he’s there (beyond a vague sense of recognition and familiarity through the bond that’s background noise more than anything else, at this point) he’s tipsy. That doesn’t dull his alarm any when Wonshik makes a beeline for him, though, his gaze sharpening into something pointed, a weapon.

“What the hell,” he murmurs, grabbing Hongbin by the elbow and guiding him into the kitchen, “have you eaten?”

Immediately Hongbin takes a step back, eyes wide. If Wonshik gets curious enough he’ll bite, and if he tastes what’s in Hongbin’s blood this will all come crashing down around him—and the thought of his world collapsing while he’s drunk and wearing a t-shirt that’s a crime against immortality is too much to bear. “What do you mean?”

Wonshik’s nostrils flare and his eyes blaze. “You smell funny. I don’t know what it is, but it’s different. _Who_ did you feed on?”

 _Taekwoon_ , he wants to say, because the relief at the truth would be so great it might even supersede whatever happens next. But just because he’s drunk doesn’t mean he’s an idiot, so he shakes his head, searching around desperately for a convincing lie. It’s not until he looks up at Wonshik again somewhat desperately, and sees steely grey surrounding him that it hits him, and he grins, more out of nervousness than anything else. “You’re never gonna believe it, but I found another human like me.”

“What? That can sense immortals?”

Hongbin nods. “Yeah. I fed off him to see what it’d be like.”

“And?”

“It was pretty good,” Hongbin says with a shrug, like it was No Big Deal even as Wonshik can sense that’s a lie. “Would recommend.”

At this Wonshik folds his arms. It’s obvious he’s feeling that there’s more to the story than that, but it’s also obvious that he doesn’t know what it is, and some of Hongbin’s tension slides away.

//

The apartment is dark when Hongbin lets himself in.

For a moment he thinks Taekwoon has gone—fled in the day to somewhere where Hongbin cannot follow—and he sags, the tension draining from his shoulders, the relief flooding in at the knowledge that the problem has solved itself. He doesn’t have to lie to Sanghyuk or Wonshik again. He never will.

“Hello, vampire,” comes Taekwoon’s voice in the darkness, and Hongbin closes his eyes and bites his lip, hard.

“Hello, angel,” he replies, not bothering to temper the cruelty in his voice. He doesn’t reach for the light; he can see just fine in the dark, and he doesn’t particularly care if Taekwoon can or not. “How did you know it was me?”

Taekwoon sits slowly upright on the sofa, but Hongbin doesn’t miss how his whole body trembles as he does so. “If it was anyone else I would have been dead before I could speak.” He sniffs disdainfully. “And you reek of my blood. I can sense it in you.”

“Is it sad that that’s not even the creepiest thing you’ve ever said?” Hongbin snipes, stepping around the sofa to sit gingerly in the armchair in the corner of the room.

There’s a pause, and Hongbin swears Taekwoon is smiling before he looks away. “Perhaps.”

The room absolutely stinks of blood, and Hongbin would be lying if it isn’t making his fangs throb painfully in his gums, the urge to leap across the space between them and drink and drink and drink disturbing present. But unlike the other night, he has control, and instead of moving he digs his fingers into the arm of the chair and waits.

“Why have you come?” Taekwoon asks a while later, turning back to look at Hongbin.

The other question is unspoken, but Hongbin hears it all the same. _And why haven’t you killed me yet?_ He doesn’t really want to answer either, he realises, because he doesn’t know.

“I don’t know,” he says, brilliantly.

Taekwoon snorts. “Am I your prisoner?”

“Of course not. You’re free to leave whenever you want.” He shrugs, trying to be nonchalant even though he knows that if his heart could beat, it would be racing in his chest. “But I think we both know you have nowhere else to go.”

“And I think we both know that you are out of your depth,” Taekwoon hisses, leaning forward, hands flexing into claws like he’s imagining leaping across and clawing Hongbin’s eyes out.

But it’s painfully obvious that he can’t leap anywhere. Hongbin forgets what colour the sofa was originally, but right now it’s stained a dark red. The floor, too, has puddles of blood on it, and when Hongbin looks at his feet he realises he’s stepped in it and has left ghostly bloody footprints leading to the chair. All of a sudden he’s exhausted, tired of this facade when they’ve barely begun, and leans back and stares at the ceiling so he doesn’t have to see the mess that Taekwoon has made through no fault of his own.

Well. Not exactly.

“Kill me.”

There it is again, that plea that rings so true, and Hongbin can’t bring himself to look at Taekwoon. If he does his resolve will weaken, and maybe, just maybe, if he looks away, he can do this. “Do you really want me to?”

“I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t want you to,” Taekwoon replies, and Hongbin wonders if that’s true. Angels can’t lie, but Taekwoon’s not an angel anymore. “Just do it.”

But he moves too fast and Hongbin turns to look at him on instinct, and his will breaks because—he can’t. He can’t. That ancient loneliness is wreathing Taekwoon, and even though Hongbin knows he should he just can’t bring himself to. “I can’t,” he whispers, the words little more than an exhale on the air, but Taekwoon hears and shudders.

“Why?” he demands, and when Hongbin doesn’t answer, stands up. _“Why?_ You are vampire. Your very existence only continues because you kill.” He takes a step forward, and then another, and when Hongbin stands up he realises they are very nearly exactly the same height. “You want to.” Another step. “So why can’t you?” Another step, a pause. “It’s not like you have had any regard for human life in the past.”

Hongbin freezes, looking at Taekwoon with narrowed eyes, calculating the time it would take for him to spring forward and snap his neck. Less than a second, almost certainly, if Taekwoon doesn’t put up a fight. “You don’t know anything about me,” he growls, fingers twitching.

And then, just like the other night, Hongbin knows. He knows what Taekwoon is about to say before he says it, and the rage fills him before he can even complete his stupid little speech. “Lee Hongbin,” he starts, tone mocking. “Born twenty-ninth of September, 1896. Turned first of March 1919. You’re afraid of fire—”

With a roar, Hongbin leaps, intent on snapping Taekwoon’s neck clean in two. At the last moment, though, his hands move of their own accord and he uppercuts Taekwoon viciously instead, his head cracking upwards so hard he nearly hits the ceiling. Hongbin doesn’t let him fall, though, and instead kicks him in the stomach, watching as he goes sailing across the apartment, hitting the wall so violently dust falls from the ceiling. “What have you done to me!” he shrieks, because this shouldn’t be happening, he shouldn’t be able to tell the future and he shouldn’t be able to predict Taekwoon’s words. Sanghyuk was one thing. This is something else entirely.

“Use your brain,” Taekwoon hisses, bent double at the waist. “The power in my blood is yours, now. It’s changing you. You can even—” he cuts himself off, and Hongbin’s spine tingles.

“I can even what?”

Taekwoon looks up at him and snarls, a vicious, guttural sound that rolls though Hongbin’s entire body. On instinct he bares his fangs back; this is language he knows, animalistic, raw, primal. “No.”

“No?”

“That is one secret I will never tell, vampire, so don’t bother. I will take it to the grave. And you’re going to send me there, before I do it myself—”

His threat is empty, though, because before he can take a step his eyes roll back in his head and he faints, falling to the ground with a crash that makes Hongbin wince.

//

“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” Hongbin says to no one.

He’s apparently gone so insane as to start speaking to himself—he’s certainly not speaking to Taekwoon, who’s still out cold, his chest rising and falling steadily. He’s _also_ apparently gone so insane as to attempt to stitch up Taekwoon’s back wounds, which is truly mystifying since they were trying to kill each other half an hour ago. He tells himself that it’s just because he cannot stand to be around all that blood. He’s not sure if he believes it.

He doesn’t really know if his mind is his own, anymore.

“I doubt you’ll even say thank you,” he continues to Taekwoon’s lifeless form, laying on the filthy carpet. “Maybe I should stitch your mouth shut, while I’m at it.”

Not bothering to be careful, he rolls Taekwoon onto his front and rips his shirt free, not really knowing what to expect—but even his worst nightmares could not summon the sight in front of him. The wounds are huge, stretching from shoulderblade to waist, and impossibly deep; Hongbin can see Taekwoon’s ribs, the layers of muscle torn and ruined, and has to take a moment to look away. When he looks back at them he doesn’t just see the wounds but also Taekwoon’s lack of a soul, and shudders, his skin going cold. Colder.

“That doesn’t matter either,” he mumbles, picking up his suturing needle and thread—Wonshik had insisted on teaching him to sew, for some reason, and it’s not a skill he’s used since—and ignoring the way his hands are shaking very obviously. “Since you can’t feel anything. And even if you could I wouldn’t care. My cold hands are the least of your concerns at the moment.”

 _If Sanghyuk could see me now,_ he thinks, and starts stitching grimly.

It’s not as easy as it looks, and not just because stitching skin is different to stitching fabric. The wounds are so large that he has to hold them shut and stitch, but he can’t do that with one hand, he ends up kneeling on Taekwoon’s back and using his knees to hold the wound shut. Belatedly he realises he should have washed his hands, and then even more belatedly realises that Taekwoon’s been wandering the world with these wounds open for a decade and that the chance of infection is probably very low.

He’s halfway up the left side when Taekwoon stirs, groaning, and then turns his head. “Why are you on my back?” he grunts, and then gasps when Hongbin slides the needle in again. “What are you—”

“I don’t know,” Hongbin whispers, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. “I don’t fucking know, Taekwoon, I don’t know why I’m trying to help you instead of killing you. So stop asking.”

There’s a long pause, and then Taekwoon starts vibrating underneath Hongbin, which is alarming until Hongbin realises he’s trying to hold in laughter—and then it’s even more alarming, because, well, it’s Taekwoon. “Is this really _helping_ me? It _hurts_ —”

“Shut up,” Hongbin commands, and for some reason, Taekwoon obeys.

It takes forever, and halfway through Hongbin considers giving up. But the thought of the blood leaking out of Taekwoon, calling his name and begging to be drunk, provides enough motivation. By the time he stands up and moves away from Taekwoon his back hurts and his fingers are cramping, but at least the blood has stopped flowing from him for now.

His hands are still shaking, but more importantly than that they’re covered in blood. He doesn’t need to feed. He won’t need to feed again for months after how much he took from Taekwoon. But his body doesn’t seem to care and he trembles, because this isn’t the usual feeding urge. This is an addiction.

“What have you done to me?” he asks again, quietly. “This—I shouldn’t _want_ this—you’re _you_.”

Taekwoon sits up slowly, moving warily like he’s afraid to pop a stitch, and his eyes are glittering in the shitty overhead lighting. “It has nothing to do with me personally. True immortal energy is like a drug to false immortals. Why do you think your incubus friend fought a war for his nephilim?” A shudder runs through him, like even mentioning Jaehwan makes him sick. “It’s simply the way you’re made.”

Hongbin’s whole body thrums with the effort of holding back. “You’re not a true immortal anymore,” he says, tearing his eyes from his hands to meet Taekwoon’s.

“I am aware,” Taekwoon replies, droll, and heaves himself up so he’s sitting on the sofa. “What are you doing, Hongbin?”

It’s the use of his name that cuts though his stupor a little bit, because Taekwoon is addressing him casually, not as _vampire_ or with an insult. “What do you mean?”

“With me. Am I really… free to go? I’m not your prisoner? Because… If you’re not going to kill me, and I’m free to leave, what are you doing?”

 _What are you doing with me,_ he means, and it’s a valid question. What is Hongbin doing here instead of in bed with Sanghyuk, or hanging out with Hakyeon and Wonshik and Jaehwan, where he belongs? What is Hongbin doing betraying them all? “I don’t know,” he says, the only answer he has to give because it’s the only truth he feels. “I can’t kill you. I just can’t.”

“Why?”

“Do you know what it’s like, to look at you?”

Taekwoon shakes his head. “I could never see my own aura. That has not changed.”

That’s interesting—Hongbin has always been able to see his own, a reassuring presence when he looks in the mirror (that and his reflection, which, contrary to popular belief, is perfectly visible), but he files that fact away under the growing section in his mind labeled _Things I Didn’t Know About Taekwoon_ and continues. “Be thankful for that,” he murmurs, and forces himself to meet Taekwoon’s eyes. “It’s like looking into a black hole. You don’t have a soul as far as I can see, not even a human one. Just _nothing_. You shouldn’t exist. You shouldn’t be alive. It’s like… there’s this feeling in my bones, in my stomach, when I look at you. It hurts.”

He exhales and leans back and realises, with a small shock, that that’s probably the most he’s ever said to Taekwoon, and none of it flattering. But Taekwoon’s face doesn’t change; it’s still frozen into an expression that Hongbin can’t recognise, even with his eerie, too-human eyes. “If I shouldn’t be alive, why can’t you kill me?”

“Why haven’t _you_ killed _me_ yet?” Hongbin asks instead of answering, because he’s getting tired of not having an answer for Taekwoon, or for himself.

At this, Taekwoon snorts. “I don’t think I’m capable of killing anyone.”

But Hongbin waits, because that’s a non-answer and they both know it, and as he waits he watches Taekwoon. He’s twitchy, flinching at nothing as they sit there, and Hongbin can hear his heartbeat; it’s racing. How did he not notice that before? It’s been racing this whole time, he realises, which means that either Taekwoon is terribly afraid—and he doesn’t look it—or in more pain than he’s letting on.

“I am not too proud to not know when I have been defeated,” Taekwoon murmurs a few minutes later, and his shoulders slump and he looks so fucking human that Hongbin’s heart aches for him. “And I cannot come back from this. I lost. He won. Fair and square.”

“I would hardly call what you did _fair_ ,” Hongbin snaps, before he can stop himself. “Sorry. I shouldn’t—I don’t know why I’m bothering.”

“No, you’re right,” Taekwoon says as Hongbin stands up to go, and it’s so quiet it’s little more than a whisper between them but it stops Hongbin in his tracks because—because angels don’t admit they’re wrong. Angels are _never_ wrong. They just are, and by simply being they are right and everything they do is right.

“What did you say?”

“I said you are right. I was not fair. I was… wrong.” Taekwoon tilts his head at this—the movement eerily familiar from the past—like the words don’t come easily to him, and they probably don’t. “I do not think I have ever admitted that before.”

Hongbin wants to stay. His whole being is aching to sit again, to grill Taekwoon relentlessly, because angels don’t change. That’s the whole point of them. But then, he realises, Taekwoon is not an angel, and that is a change in of itself. Maybe he’s becoming something new, or maybe he’s already become something new, and Hongbin’s natural curiosity is niggling at him to find out more. Especially this… for Taekwoon to admit he was wrong… maybe he’s not as bad as he used to be.

Or maybe Hongbin’s just justifying his continued insanity. He genuinely can’t tell anymore.

“You’d best be going, vampire,” Taekwoon murmurs with a wry smile. He clearly is not missing Hongbin’s indecision. “God knows you wouldn’t want to be caught out in the sun.”

Or maybe Taekwoon hasn’t changed, because he’s still smiling as he says this, like that’s an amusing prospect, and Hongbin snorts in derision as he turns to go. Taekwoon is right, though; it’s nearly dawn, and his home is calling to him. _Sanghyuk_ is calling to him. That’s where he belongs, not here in this shithole apartment, conversing with the very being he’d have given anything to kill a few months ago.

“We’re not finished,” he promises as he slips out the door, and he doesn’t miss Taekwoon’s laugh as he goes.

//

Sanghyuk finds him in the shower, swaying under the cold water in an attempt to stay awake. Hongbin hears him coming, of course, but doesn’t bother to move. He’s too exhausted, emotionally and physically, and just lets Sanghyuk pull him into an embrace. “Fuck, Hongbin,” he hisses, and yanks them both out from underneath the water stream. “Why aren’t you using the hot water? Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he mumbles, but the game is up because Sanghyuk has spotted the red water swirling at their feet and his eyes narrow.

“You’re _not_ fine. You never come home… bloody. What’s going on?”

There’s a long pause, a delicate moment that shimmers in the air around them where Hongbin can just see himself telling Sanghyuk, the words silky smooth on his tongue, light with the weightlessness of the truth. That would be the easy part, he thinks dreamily. The hard part is what comes after.

_I think he’s changing. I don’t know what that means._

“I love you,” he says instead, because that’s the truth and at least he cannot, will not lie about this.

Sanghyuk’s colours flare red, and Hongbin leans away on instinct—he’s angry, and it doesn’t take a mind reader to know why. He knows that Hongbin is lying, or at least evading the truth. He just doesn’t know about what. It hurts when he flattens his lips in a line and looks away, but it hurts even more when he turns and steps out of the shower, leaving Hongbin shivering under the cold water in a way that has nothing to do with the temperature of it.

He doesn’t even bother to dry himself, just turns off the shower and follows Sanghyuk’s colours. Is this what Hakyeon felt, when he thought he’d lost Jaehwan? It feels like it’s the beginning of the end and—and he hasn’t even done anything, he thinks, before tripping over his own feet. He’s consorting with the enemy. He’s helping the very being that killed Sanghyuk, with no care or mercy, and he’s still searching for ways to justify it—

Nevermind what Taekwoon has become; what the hell has he become?

He finds Sanghyuk in the middle of their bed, curled up into a swirling pink-and-blue lump that doesn’t move when Hongbin crawls in next to him, sliding a hand up Sanghyuk’s side to rest on his stomach and pull him closer. “I love you,” he slurs, nuzzling at Sanghyuk’s neck, not because he’s thirsty but just for the comfort of his blood.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Jiho,” Hongbin lies without hesitating, Sanghyuk’s pulse hammering on his lips, telling him to _bite bite bite bite_ with each beat of his heart. “He’s been hanging around.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“Yes, but I’m fine now.” He lays his tongue flat on Sanghyuk’s neck, not biting down, not yet, but wanting to so badly he starts trembling. “I hate vampire politics—”

“I know,” Sanghyuk says, shifting so his back is pressed up against Hongbin’s front, grabbing Hongbin’s hand and tugging it close. His colours are a cacophony of chaos: red for anger mixed with a tinge of grey for sadness, along with a bright white streak of arousal that spikes when Hongbin scrapes his fangs along the sensitive skin of his neck. “Don’t—don’t _keep_ shit from me,” he continues, but his voice sounds strangled, like he’s as muddled as Hongbin is. “This only works because we’re honest—”

By _this_ he means the fact that he has to sleep with others to survive, and for a brief moment Hongbin wonders why Sanghyuk is allowed to keep secrets while he, apparently, isn’t, before banishing that thought from his mind. This is not sleeping with someone else. This is betrayal of the highest order, not just of Sanghyuk but of his own maker, a thought so heinous he shudders involuntarily. He is programmed not to do that. He shouldn’t be doing _any_ of this.

“I know. I didn’t want to worry you.” That’s true. “I won’t do it again.” Also true. “I love you.” Always true.

In response, Sanghyuk turns his head, exposing his neck; after so long together Hongbin knows this for what it is, an invitation, and his self-control finally cracks and he bites down with perhaps more force than he really needed to. Sanghyuk stiffens in his arms before relaxing, the endorphins rushing through his body almost instantly, and Hongbin flattens his mouth against the wound and drinks to forget the taste of Taekwoon’s blood and his too-human eyes, the pain written in them something Hongbin never wants to see again.

//

They’re lying on the sofa together watching some nature documentary—Sanghyuk is, at least; Hongbin’s dozing off—when Sanghyuk stirs and sighs wistfully. “I wish I was good at flying.”

Hongbin cracks an eyelid open to see that the documentary is showing eagles. As he watches, one lands on a branch gracefully, the setting sun behind it silhouetting it, and he just closes his eyes again. “You’ll get it eventually. Hakyeon said it took him a century to master and he’s still not confident with it.”

“I know, but…” Sanghyuk sighs again and burrows closer to Hongbin. “It’s the coolest feeling, the wind beneath your wings—”

“I can fly higher than an eagle,” Hongbin warbles, “because you are the wind beneath my wings—”

“Shut up,” Sanghyuk groans, clapping a hand over Hongbin’s mouth even though he’s still attempting to sing. “I just mean it’s awesome, okay! And sometimes I wish you could fly with me.”

At that, Hongbin stops singing abruptly, a weird feeling of unease in his stomach. Sometimes—not all the time—he feels so much like a burden to Sanghyuk, who is the very definition of the word free. All he can do is run fast and break stuff. Sanghyuk can become anything, do anything, and isn’t even restricted to doing it at nighttime. It’s not just unfair, it’s unjust, and it keeps him up sometimes. “I—sorry?” he eventually gets out around Sanghyuk’s hand.

“No, I didn’t mean like that. You don’t have to be sorry.” Sitting up, Sanghyuk pats Hongbin on the knee somewhat comfortingly. “I just meant—I don’t know. I wish you could see the sun with me, one day.”

“Me too,” Hongbin murmurs, sitting up as well and wrapping his arms around his legs.

Another thing that keeps him up at night—or in the mornings, rather—is the fact that it's been over a century since he last saw the sun properly. Sometimes he can taste it on Sanghyuk's skin when he crawls into bed right after sunset, and it's so tantalising he can barely stand it; Wonshik doesn't seem to care anymore, but as Hongbin gets older it weighs on his mind more and more often. _Is this why some vampires end up going mad?_ he thinks, resting a hand on Sanghyuk's thigh to anchor himself. _Because of what they can't have?_

“I—” Sanghyuk starts, and then cuts himself off when his work phone buzzes. He reaches for it on instinct and Hongbin can't help rolling his eyes and flopping back onto the sofa; sometimes it seems like Sanghyuk is attached to the thing surgically, a byproduct of his modern upbringing. “Ah, shit.”

“What?”

“I think I have to go to Busan for a couple of days,” Sanghyuk says, chewing on his lip. “Like, today. When the sun comes up.”

“Today? But...” Hongbin echoes, trying to remember what was important about tomorrow. By the look Sanghyuk's giving him—apologetic, his eyes wide and beseeching—it’s something that should be high on his priority list, and the moment it hits him he narrows his eyes. “Wait. We were going to the theatre tomorrow.”

He’d managed to score tickets to a musical he’s wanted to see for years, a late showing after dark; it had been a battle to get them before they sold out and they’d both been excited. It’s not the first time Sanghyuk has blown off plans for his job, and for a moment Hongbin lets a small spark of anger rise in his chest. At least back when he was hooking he was punctual; he had his appointments, and that was it. But all of a sudden now he’s the busiest man in the universe, being dragged across the country with little notice to help manage a wayward idol, or scrawl out a song. Hongbin’s not sure why he has to be there in person to do that, but it’s not his job, so he tries to hold his tongue… But this is the last straw.

“I know, and I’m sorry, but Sungjin is freaking out—” Wrong thing to say, since Hongbin doesn’t like Sungjin all that much, and narrows his eyes. “I’m really sorry. They need me down there.”

“I need you here,” Hongbin whispers.

His honesty startles Sanghyuk, he can see. He wasn’t expecting that. “Hyung, it’s just two days. You’ll be fine!”

Except Hongbin _won’t_ be fine. Sanghyuk’s presence is the excuse he’s been giving himself to stay away from T—to not do things he shouldn't. By keeping himself distracted, it’s been a week since he last saw Ta—the person he shouldn’t be seeing, and a good few days since thoughts of him even crossed Hongbin’s mind. Without Sanghyuk around, what the hell is he going to do?

“What is it?” Sanghyuk leans closer and touches Hongbin on the cheek, grounding him. “Is it the Jiho thing?”

Hongbin lies, because he can’t do anything else, and nods. Who knows, it might actually be the Jiho thing—he hasn’t been patrolling his territory because he’s been busy with Tae—with things, and then busy with Sanghyuk. Right now he couldn’t give less of a shit about Jiho, but he’s a convenient excuse. “I feel safer with you around,” he tells Sanghyuk.

For a moment he can see Sanghyuk’s composure wavering. He rarely gets so outwardly needy like this, so he can tell that it’s throwing up red flags in Sanghyuk head; when Sanghyuk doesn’t say anything he starts to lean forward, certain he’s won, that Sanghyuk will stay.

But then Sanghyuk’s phone vibrates again, and he sighs. “I’m sorry, hyung. I can’t. You should stay with Wonshik hyung if you feel unsafe. I’m sure he’d love to have you back.”

Hongbin doubts this—Wonshik has taken to being an empty nester extremely well—but just nods, unfolding himself from the sofa and heading towards the kitchen as an excuse to get away from Sanghyuk to hide his rage. It simmers underneath his skin, making his hands shake as he pours himself a glass of water that he neither needs nor wants, and he knows he’s being irrational but can’t stop himself anyway. It’s easier to be angry at Sanghyuk than it is to be angry at himself.

//

When he wakes up the next evening, Sanghyuk’s gone, but he’s left a flower on his pillow. It’s a blood-red rose, and Hongbin can’t help but smile when he smells it. That’s very Sanghyuk—all traditional romance, which is strange, because he isn’t a very traditional person, all things considered. He must have got it from Hakyeon, who’s probably the biggest romantic in the whole country, if not the whole northern hemisphere.

“I will not go and see Taekwoon,” he says out loud as he walks down the hallway. With just him in it, the normally airy apartment feels suddenly too open. He is exposed in every way. “I will not go and see Taekwoon.”

But there’s an itch beneath his skin that doesn’t fade when he boots up Sanghyuk’s computer to play games. It doesn’t fade when he patrols around the block, not out of any desire to but just to distract himself. It doesn’t fade when he rings Wonshik and Hakyeon and Jaehwan, in turn, hoping that they’ll answer and agree to meet him; all he gets is their voicemails.

The temptation roils inside him, forcing him out the door, and when he’s running through the night towards the very thing he should be running from, he says a prayer for his forsaken soul, even though he’s not sure he even sure he believes.

//

The apartment is dark again when he lets himself in, but there’s no sign of life, no breathing or heartbeats, and instantly Hongbin relaxes as he snaps on the light. There’s no huge pools of blood, either, even though he can still smell it on the air. All there is is a small trail of drops, small ones, leading to the door; when he crouches and touches one, he finds they’re nearly dry and his heart sings with relief. Taekwoon’s gone. He’s really gone, probably dead, and it’s for the best because even though Hongbin had allowed himself to believe Taekwoon was changing, how much can a true immortal really change?

His relief only lasts twenty minutes, all of which he spends cleaning. The first thing he does is throw the blood-stained sofa onto the street. He can’t leave it there—there’ll be questions from mortals if he does and that’s the last thing he needs—and so he’ll take it somewhere and burn it later. He then decides to scrub the tiles in the bathroom, because blood has collected on the grout and stained it brown, and as he’s doing this somewhat manically he hears the front door open behind him and is on his feet in an instant, ready to leap.

But of course it’s just Taekwoon.

“You threw out the sofa!” he says, and shuts the door behind him, folding his arms over his chest. “What the hell did you do that for?”

 _Can angels swear?_ Hongbin thinks faintly, before chastising himself. All he has to do is look to see that Taekwoon isn’t an angel any longer. “What are you doing here?” he breathes.

Taekwoon gives him a funny look, like Hongbin’s the one being weird. Well. Maybe he is. “You have graciously allowed me to stay here, remember?” When a beat of silence passes, his eyes widen. “You thought I was dead, didn’t you? Is that why you didn’t come?”

He nearly says it—he nearly says _I didn’t come because I’m terrified of what you’re becoming and what I’m becoming too_ , but instead just drops the brush he was using to scrub the tiles. It hits the ground with a clatter and Taekwoon winces, shying away from the noise. “That’s none of your business.”

“Vampire,” Taekwoon starts, and reconsiders when Hongbin’s eyes flash red. “Hongbin. I believe you made it my business when you took me here, and then stitched up my back—”

“I did that out of kindness!”

“Which I didn’t ask for!” Taekwoon roars, and Hongbin can’t help it, he takes a step back. “All _I_ have asked for is death, from the very first moment I saw you. I have allowed you to take my blood. I have allowed you to do anything you wanted with me. I have not fled. You could hand me over to the nephilim if you wished. So it is _you_ who is not acting on _my_ terms, here.” He seems to deflate before Hongbin’s very eyes, looking at him suspiciously. “Why _haven’t_ you handed me over to the nephilim?”

Feeling suddenly very tired, Hongbin sits in the armchair, the only available space. It leaves Taekwoon standing, which makes him feel slightly better. “I don’t know,” he mutters, and scrubs his eyes with his hands. “You keep asking these questions that I don’t have answers for.”

“And yet you still come here,” Taekwoon points out quietly.

“I do.”

Taekwoon settles himself carefully on the floor, leaning against the wall and hugging his knees, where he looks small and very mortal indeed. “I believe you call this an impasse.”

“I believe so.”

The thought that he’s sitting across from the creature that hunted and tortured Jaehwan for over a thousand years hits him, but it is only a vague, pulsing warning at the back of his mind. That Taekwoon and this Taekwoon are different, that much is clear. He cannot deny any longer that Taekwoon has changed. But how? And why does he care so much?

Now that he’s relaxing, he can hear Taekwoon’s heart, and just like last time it’s racing. He doesn’t smell like fear, and his hands aren’t shaking; he’s just regarding Hongbin with an even gaze and unreadable expression. “Are you in pain?” Hongbin asks, the question bursting free before he can stop it.

“Always,” Taekwoon replies softly after a beat. “For ten years.” He pauses and looks at the ground. “It is slightly better now. After you stitched up my back. My body doesn’t seem to want to tear itself apart as much.”

“May I see the wounds?”

If Taekwoon is surprised at this, he doesn’t let it show, and stands up and pulls his shirt over his head gingerly. Hongbin gets out of the armchair, approaching slowly, eyes scanning Taekwoon’s back; the stitches are holding, aside from one or two that have popped, and although there’s still blood it’s now oozing out sluggishly instead of flowing openly. He lays a hand on Taekwoon’s back, not even thinking of the consequences, forgetting what Taekwoon can do—and then he’s there, inside Hongbin’s mind. He snatches his hand away, but it’s too late, and Taekwoon whirls with accusing eyes.

“You think I am changing?” he accuses, clutching his tshirt close to his chest. “And you—you think _you’re_ changing?” His voice takes on a tone of awe, and he suddenly looks at Hongbin differently. “You haven’t even told the incubus.”

“Don’t touch me again—”

“You touched _me_ , vampire,” Taekwoon replies, and smiles. Once upon a time it was creepy, but now it’s sort of endearing, broken fang and all, and that’s how Hongbin realises he’s really and truly going to Hell. “That is an implicit invitation.”

Hongbin’s hand shoots out again and lands on Taekwoon’s wrist, and as the connection opens between them he lets Taekwoon see. He lets Taekwoon feel every second of the agony he has felt at lying to Sanghyuk. He lets Taekwoon feel his anxiety around Jaehwan and Wonshik, and he lets him feel how he’s cried sometimes from his betrayal of them. He lets Taekwoon see the desire for his blood, to rip him limb from limb, and then he lets Taekwoon see how this whole situation has filled him with an existential dread the likes of which he has never felt before, like he’s going mad and losing his very sense of self.

This time, when Hongbin pulls his hand away, Taekwoon doesn’t make a smart comment. Instead he just turns away and yanks the tshirt over his head, and when he turns back around, he’s frowning. “I am sorry—”

“No, you’re not! All you do is fuck up people’s lives! You tried to kill Jaehwan a million times and then when you couldn’t get to him you took to killing innocent people—those immortals you fucking slaughtered to send him a message. My own _boyfriend_. I had to feel you stab my maker and I had to watch Hakyeon nearly kill himself to kill you. And now after all these years you’re _still_ doing it, you’re still here fucking things up, making me feel like I’m going crazy because I can’t even do the thing I was fucking made to do. All you do is ruin lives. It’s all you can do, and you’re not sorry because you don’t know any better.”

When he finishes he’s panting and his fangs have descended and his hands are balled into fists, and his whole world is narrowed down into _Taekwoon Taekwoon Taekwoon Taekwoon_ , and not in a good way.

“So kill me,” whispers Taekwoon, and the worst part is Hongbin can hear the genuine agony in his voice. “It is nothing less than I deserve.”

The desire is so real that Hongbin can barely see behind the bloodlust and rage swimming in his vision, turning the whole world red. “I can’t, and that’s what’s killing me,” he spits, and turns away.

Taekwoon reaches for him and touches him on the shoulder, and that is one violation too many and Hongbin whirls, shoving Taekwoon with both hands into the wall. “Don’t touch me!” he roars, and several things all happen at once.

The first is that Taekwoon howls with pain as the stitches split and his wounds reopen. Hongbin only has a second to process that before he’s blinded by lavender, and then Taekwoon’s howl turns to a tortured scream as he hits the floor, his body writhing and thrashing as whatever is dormant inside him, some vestige of his angelic powers, tries to free itself. “Please,” he screams, and then Hongbin hears something break as he contorts.

Hongbin doesn’t think, he just moves, and he drops to the floor and pulls Taekwoon close, holding his arms to his sides to try and stop him from moving. He can feel the moment the pain passes, because Taekwoon slumps, going limp, and his colours return to nothingness once more. He’s crying, sobbing brokenly, fingers clenching and unclenching on the carpet, and because he does not know what else to do Hongbin pulls Taekwoon’s head into his lap and strokes his hair as he cries.

“I’m sorry,” Taekwoon whimpers, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

And then for a second the connection opens, but Taekwoon’s not poking through Hongbin’s mind. Instead Hongbin’s inside Taekwoon’s, and all he can feel is pain, radiating through his entire body. Over that, though, is the torture and agony of someone repenting for an eternity’s worth of sins and hatred, of the soul-rendering sobs of a being truly broken. It’s the crushing weight of guilt, genuine and eternal, and it is the most heartbreaking thing Hongbin has ever felt.

He holds Taekwoon for hours until dawn threatens to break, stroking his hair and letting him weep, and in the navy-blue of the very early morning, there in that tiny, ruined apartment, forgiveness finds them both.

 

_to err is human, to forgive divine_  
_-Alexander Pope_


	2. Chapter 2

Even though he wakes feeling just as refreshed as he normally does, the blankets are at a messy pool at the bottom of the bed, and he swears he can almost remember a dream, just shifting shapes and colours and a horrible feeling of guilt.

He doesn’t have time to dwell on that—vampires aren’t meant to dream, after all—and instead gets dressed and heads out, dreading what he’ll find in the apartment but dreading not going there more. When he arrives, though, Taekwoon is just as Hongbin left him, passed out on the sofa that he’d dragged back inside. He stirs when Hongbin closes the door, holding his breath so as not to smell the blood, and sits up groggily.

“Hello,” Hongbin says, when he realises Taekwoon is not going to say anything. He doesn’t reply, just stares at Hongbin suspiciously. “Are… you alright?”

Taekwoon narrows his eyes and looks away, the tips of his ears turning pink. “Fine.”

With a start, Hongbin realises he must be embarrassed after what happened last night. Being open and honest is clearly not something that comes easily to him, and he has a feeling that what transpired between them is the most honest he has ever been. Realising all the wrongs he’s committed, and being truly sorry for them, is incredibly difficult, and Hongbin admires him in a way. “I need to stitch up your back again,” he says after a moment, because he doesn’t really know how to say everything he needs to.

Silently, Taekwoon slips off his shirt and slides off the sofa to lie face-down on the ground, and Hongbin sighs as he reaches for the suturing needle and thread he’d bought (well, stolen) for this purpose. If Taekwoon is going to be this uncommunicative the whole time, Hongbin is not going to get very far, and he has a lot of things he wants to say.

“Don’t read my mind,” he warns as he kneels next to Taekwoon.

All he gets in response is a grunt that he supposes is affirmative, so he takes a deep breath in and begins. Just like last time it’s damned hard work, now moreso than ever because he’s holding his breath, and when he’s done one side he gets up to stretch his back. Taekwoon has kept true to his word and his stayed out of his head, as far as he can tell, but he’s not said a word, either, and Hongbin can’t stand the silence anymore. “Are you okay?”

“Just please do the other one,” Taekwoon replies, muffled since his face is still on the floor.

Hongbin obeys, since it seems that Taekwoon isn’t going to be communicative until it’s done, if he’s even communicative at all.

It takes hours, and when he finishes he ties the end of the suturing thread off neatly and then flops backwards onto the floor, stretching until he hears his joints pop and closing his eyes in bliss. “You’re done.”

There’s a rustling noise as Taekwoon sits up, and then something wet is falling onto Hongbin’s lips. He licks them before he can even think about it, and when the taste of blood explodes on his tongue he sits up so fast he nearly whacks Taekwoon in the head. He’s kneeling over Hongbin, offering him a bleeding wrist wordlessly, and although every fibre of Hongbin’s being is screaming at him to take, he somehow holds himself back. “What—are—you—doing—” he gets out around gritted teeth, keeping his eyes trained on Taekwoon’s face, deliberately not looking at his wrist.

“As thanks,” Taekwoon says evenly, and then moves his wrist even closer; he must be able to read the desperation in Hongbin’s eyes. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine—that’s not how this works—I came here to talk,” Hongbin splutters, and then inhales. Mistake. His world swims and he leans forward, helpless. “I don’t need your blood.”

Taekwoon narrows his eyes. “You’re hungry. I can sense it. Drink and then we’ll talk.”

He still doesn’t move, unable to, unwilling to, it doesn’t matter. The first time he drunk from Taekwoon was out of desperation. The second time was out of mercy. This is different; this is a step in the wrong direction, and although he can’t bring himself to pull away he cannot bring himself to grab Taekwoon’s wrist, either. Taekwoon, though, gets sick of waiting, and as Hongbin watches he rubs his fingers in the wound, smearing them with blood, and then touches them to Hongbin’s lips.

It’s too much, and with a growl he grabs the bleeding wrist and bites down, uncaring as to whether it hurts. Taekwoon, though, doesn’t even flinch. He doesn’t cry out or look away. He doesn’t react at all except to watch Hongbin with an even gaze like they’re talking about the weather instead of letting Hongbin feed on his life force. Just like last time the blood is the most potent, addictive thing he’s ever tasted, and it’s all he can do to stop himself from draining Taekwoon entirely. He _wants_ to. That’s probably the worst part, that there’ll always be a part of him wanting more, more, more, and that he lives his life constantly trying to ignore it.

He pulls away with a gasp before remembering to close the wound and so runs his tongue over it, and as he does he feels Taekwoon in his mind, just a brief brush of nothingness that leaves a chill running down his spine. “The fuck!” he blurts, and scoots backwards. “I told you not to fucking do that!”

“I wanted to see what it felt like,” Taekwoon says, and when Hongbin shoots him a look he shrugs. “What my blood feels like, to you.”

Hongbin feels like a god. He knows he has strength that no false immortal should possess, that he could tear down this whole apartment with ease, that he could probably pick Taekwoon up and fling him to the moon if he so desired. The temptation to do that right now is overpowering, and he closes his eyes and exhales slowly to try and calm himself down. “When I say don’t read my mind, I mean it, Taekwoon. This can’t work if there’s no trust between us.”

“I trust you.”

Taekwoon says it so unflinchingly, so openly, that Hongbin is taken aback for a second and doesn’t know what to say. _I trust you, why wouldn’t I?_ his tone says, and Hongbin is a little bit sad, because all things said and done they shouldn’t trust each other—but they do.

“And I trust you too,” he says truthfully, opening his eyes to meet Taekwoon’s. “And part of trust is trying to… I don’t know, accommodate each other. I really don’t like it when you read my mind. So please don’t do it, okay?”

There’s a pause while Taekwoon digests this, and then he looks away. “You’re not going to tell the nephilim, are you?”

This he must have gleaned from Hongbin’s mind just now, and Hongbin makes a mental note to quiz him about this odd method of communication—how much he can see, what he can sort through. Is all of Hongbin’s life laid out for the taking? Is he just reduced to a collection of memories?

“No,” he replies, and looks down at his hands. They’re shaking. “I can’t.”

“And you won’t let me die,” Taekwoon says, and then adds, “Or rather you won’t kill me.”

“Yeah.”

“So. What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

At this, Taekwoon turns his gaze on Hongbin, and his expression this time is one Hongbin can read easily—it’s fear. “I cannot live like this, Hongbin. This is a half-life.”

“A half life is better than no life at all,” Hongbin replies slowly, holding Taekwoon’s gaze. “I felt how regretful you are. You deserve a chance at redemption. Isn’t that what your God is about?”

Taekwoon is on his feet before Hongbin can blink, backing away and shaking his head. He scoops his shirt off the floor and pulls it on carefully, his shoulders rounding in. He looks defeated, alone, and Hongbin’s heart aches for him. “Do you believe in God?”

Hongbin doesn’t, despite his upbringing, despite the fact that the chain of events that led to his turning began in a church. Perhaps it’s close-minded of him, especially because he’s standing across from an angel—or what used to be an angel—and he has no rational explanation for that. He doesn’t even have an explanation for what animates him; some vampires say it’s magic, but Hongbin doesn’t really believe in that either. “No,” he says, feeling like a fool as he does.

“Then you can’t understand.”

 _Understand what?_ Hongbin wants to ask, but he knows that will be the wrong thing to say. Taekwoon looks like he’s a few minutes away from running, like the room is suddenly too small to hold him. “Try and make me understand,” he says instead.

Taekwoon inhales, but it’s shuddering, juddery, like it hurts to breathe. “It’s like being connected to something bigger than you. It is all you have known from the moment you existed. It is something more than family and something more than love. I cannot explain it in mortal language.” He covers his face with his hands, a weeping angel, and Hongbin has to force himself to stay still. “And the absence of it hurts more than the loss of my wings. Maybe they are one and the same. But I have never been so alone, so disconnected. We are not meant to be alone.”

“You’re not—”

“I am alone,” replies Taekwoon, like Hongbin hasn’t even spoken. “And the thought of continuing to exist like this until the earth burns is the worst punishment I can conceive of. The nephilim knew exactly what he was doing when he left me like this. I would have rather he killed me.”

Hongbin sways on the spot, slightly stunned. At the time he’d thought Jaehwan was making a choice born of mercy, but this is monstrous—perhaps as monstrous as what Taekwoon has done to him in the first place. He is in awe at the depth of cruelty Jaehwan has inside of him, and wonders if Hakyeon can see it, if he even knows it’s there. Is this what Jaehwan wanted? An eye for an eye? Hongbin has to bet he didn’t expect Taekwoon to surface years down the line, for his choice to be revealed—and yet, can Hongbin really grudge him? He is only a hundred years old. The thought of enduring another nine lifetimes while being hunted—for the simple accident of his birth, which he did not ask for—by one of the most frightening creatures on the face of the planet is heinous. What Jaehwan did to Taekwoon was abhorrent, but so is what Taekwoon did to Jaehwan.

Neither one of them was right. Neither one was wrong. And Hongbin is left somewhere in the middle, swimming in shades of grey.

“Why did you do it?” he asks, the question that has been burning in him. “Why did you… Why Jaehwan? Why couldn’t you just leave him?”

Taekwoon looks at Hongbin though his fingers. “He got away.”

“Wha—”

“He got _away_ ,” Taekwoon says again, with urgency. “You don’t understand. I was created to hunt nephilim. That was my entire purpose. I had done it for an eternity before him and I had never failed. He killed my brothers and he did it with glee and I thought he was a danger to the world. To us. So I chased him. I did whatever it took.” He shakes his head and folds to the floor, crouching. “I thought—I thought I was doing the right thing.”

Hongbin crosses the gulf between them torturously slowly, his body moving of its own accord; his mind is somewhere very far away. “And now?” he murmurs, resting a hand on the top of Taekwoon’s head.

“Now?” Taekwoon looks up at Hongbin, and his eyes are glittering with tears again. “I… don’t know. I don’t know what is right and what is wrong. Everything I am was scattered to the wind ten years ago. I have lost myself.”

Hongbin knows. He can see it. The emptiness surrounding Taekwoon—the same emptiness that makes his stomach tighten, his breath hitch in his chest, a chill run down his spine because of its wrongness—makes sense now, and it makes him even sadder than before. “I’m sorry,” he says, for lack of any other words. Taekwoon _is_ living a half-life, one filled with pain and sorrow, and yet Hongbin won’t—can’t—let him die. “I… don’t know what to say.”

“Can I?” Taekwoon asks, and Hongbin knows he’s asking if he can brush through Hongbin’s mind again. He shouldn’t say yes, he knows he shouldn’t, especially as they just had a discussion about this. But instead he nods, and inhales sharply as he feels that nothingness surrounding Taekwoon move into his mind, leaving a ghostly imprint on everything it touches.

He doesn’t delve into Hongbin’s memories, though. Instead he hovers at the surface of Hongbin’s consciousness, reading his thoughts; he feels Taekwoon sort through his indecision, his sorrow, his genuine regret, and when Taekwoon pulls away and leans against the wall there’s a new sadness in his eyes. “I am sorry that lying to the others brings you such grief.”

Shrugging, Hongbin folds his arms over his chest, feeling suddenly defensive. “It is what it is. I don’t really know why I’m doing it, only that I am.” And that it feels like the right thing to do. No one in this hideous millenia-old feud has had mercy on each other; maybe it’s too late to change things, but it doesn’t mean he’s not going to try.

“I am also sorry that I am,” here Taekwoon pauses to smile, “annoying.”

“Yeah, well, who knew trying to hide an oversized not-angel would be irritating?” Hongbin says, wandering towards the kitchen to get himself a glass of water.

“Oversized?”

“You were bigger with the wings.” Hongbin turns around and leans against the sink, shrugging. “You’re still long though.”

Taekwoon leans against the wall and stretches his legs out in front of him. “I cannot shapeshift anymore,” he says, and then he pouts. He looks so ridiculous that Hongbin has to roll his eyes. “I am stuck in this form.”

“It’s not a bad one, as bodies go,” Hongbin says, and then realises that came dangerously close to a compliment— _is_ a compliment—and fixes his eyes at a spot on the ceiling. “You just need some new clothes and you’ll fit right in.”

“I cannot get used to the mortal system of buying things,” Taekwoon replies mournfully, and he looks so upset that Hongbin snorts into his glass and ends up with water on his face. “I don’t understand how money works.”

“The older they are, the more useless they are,” he mumbles to himself, and then straightens up. “I need to go.”

Taekwoon cocks his head to the side and then smiles. “Ah. Yes. Sunrise in an hour. You wouldn’t want to get caught in the sun.”

It’s nearly verbatim what he said the last time, with that same creepy smile on his face, and Hongbin squints at him suspiciously, but he doesn’t elaborate. “Alright. I’ll see you tomorrow. Stop being weird.”

“Weird?” is all Taekwoon says as Hongbin shuts the door behind him, his voice full of confusion, and it’s all Hongbin can do to smile and shake his head as he stuffs his hands in his pockets and heads towards home.

//

He’s woken, as nearly always, by Sanghyuk crawling into bed with him, a hand sliding around his middle to pull him close. “Mmm?” he says, and turns his head to ask what Sanghyuk’s up to—but the moment he does Sanghyuk kisses him and he goes completely pliant.

“Missed you,” Sanghyuk whispers, rolling over so he’s on top of Hongbin, and as he does Hongbin can feel he’s hard. “Missed you a lot.”

“It was just two days,” Hongbin replies, and then gasps as Sanghyuk sucks at the sensitive spot where his neck meets his shoulder. “You—”

Even though he shouldn’t, even though he needs to forget, Taekwoon flits through his mind. Not in a sexual way at all but rather in an _oh God I’m really hiding this from you_ way, and it hits him like a punch to the stomach when Sanghyuk smiles as he kisses him, his hand stroking Hongbin’s hair away from his face. “I love you,” he says happily, and Hongbin has to close his eyes so he doesn’t cry. “Are you okay?”

He lies. It’s all he can do. It’s too late to go back, now, and he has to remind himself that he’s doing the right thing, as horrible as it feels in moments like now. With this he wipes Taekwoon from his mind, inhales, and smiles. “I’m fine. I missed you too.”

That, at least, is not a lie, and he allows himself a moment of respite that he finds in the familiar pattern of Sanghyuk’s lips. There’s a strange urgency to every move they make, like they’re desperate for each other, which is strange. They are rarely desperate, these days.

Sanghyuk’s sliding down the bed, pressing kisses to Hongbin’s stomach, when he pauses and looks up. His eyes are yellow and Hongbin feels that familiar gentle pull behind his breastbone as Sanghyuk tastes him. “What did you feed on?” he gasps, and a shudder runs through his whole body. “Holy _shit.”_

“I— _fuck,_ ” Hongbin snarls when Sanghyuk doesn’t give him a chance to reply and instead wraps a hand around his cock. “Long story—”

“Tell me later,” Sanghyuk suggests, and when Hongbin blinks once he’s naked—if there’s a God, Hongbin needs to thank him for shapeshifting—and when he blinks again he bends down to kiss the tip of Hongbin’s cock, batting his eyelashes oh-so-innocently.

There’s only one thing that Hongbin is craving right now, and it’s not Sanghyuk’s salacious smirks. It’s the hot wetness of his mouth, the little noises he makes when Hongbin fucks his face, and he’s rewarded only a few seconds later by exactly that. The pleasure is marred a little by Sanghyuk tasting his energy once more, but this time he doesn’t stop, and Hongbin’s fingers curl in the sheets. _Too much too much too much_ , it’s too much, Sanghyuk’s hot and wet and when he runs his tongue over the head of Hongbin’s cock, his eyes glowing that fierce, beautiful yellow, Hongbin can’t help but cry out. He feels tingly all over and he knows that Sanghyuk can feel it too, that something strange is building in him, and he finally threads a hand in Sanghyuk’s hair and pulls, gasping. “I want you to fuck me,” he pants, because maybe that will stop him feeling so weird. “Please.”

It’s uncommon that they do this—it’s not _bad_ , per se, but Hongbin tends to go a little crazy if he’s not the one in control—but tonight it’s what he’s craving, with an intensity that leaves him breathless. Sanghyuk squints at him, suspicious—usually it’s him doing the asking—but bends down to kiss Hongbin’s hip regardless. “Okay,” he says, and the fact that he doesn’t question it is telling in of itself. Even he can sense the weirdness beating in Hongbin’s blood.

Sanghyuk positions Hongbin face-down on the bed, and the moment he slips two fingers inside Hongbin he’s electric, buzzing, nearly vibrating on the sheets. He’s at Sanghyuk’s mercy, which is a dangerous place to be; he loves to tease, love to draw things out past their natural conclusion, and that’s exactly what he does now. His fingers feel good but they don’t feel good enough, and Hongbin buries his head in the pillow so he doesn’t beg, as much as he knows Sanghyuk would like it.

“Fuck,” Sanghyuk breathes as he positions himself and, upon receiving a nod from Hongbin, inches into him torturously slowly. “You okay?”

Just like always, the sensation of being filled takes a few seconds to adjust to, but once he exhales and relaxes he realises that he feels sated, almost, and when Sanghyuk thrusts in once, deep and slow, he grabs the sheets so hard they tear in his hands like paper. “Sanghyuk,” he croaks, and then bites down mindlessly, forgetting his fangs are out and biting two neat holes straight through his bottom lip. The pain makes him hiss, but it also makes him tighten around Sanghyuk, and they both groan. “God, I—”

 _God_ nearly makes him think of _that other thing_ but he knows he can’t think about that right now, and his focus wavers before Sanghyuk splays a hand on his back in order to fuck into him deeper. His whole body goes static, white-noise, and he wants to screamruncumdiekill do _something_ , because it’s too much, he is desperately overstimulated and when Sanghyuk stops fucking into him, concerned, he nearly screams with the loss of sensation. “Hongbin hyung! Are you—are you okay?”

“Harder,” Hongbin gets out, and he knows this is so desperately out of character but he doesn’t care. He feels like he’s burning up inside and he knows it’s something to do with the angel blood that’s currently inside him, but he doesn’t know what to do about it, only that he’s beyond frantic now. “Fuck me harder—”

Hongbin can practically see Sanghyuk’s grin at this command. He does as he’s told, yanking Hongbin’s head back and fucking into him with a ferocity that leaves him breathless and rushing towards orgasm with all the speed and grace of a derailed train. He’s on the brink of coming, but needs something to tip him over, and as it turns out all it takes is Sanghyuk moaning his name, long and low, and he’s gone. He’s only vaguely aware of Sanghyuk drinking in his orgasm, of where he is, but otherwise he’s somewhere else entirely, the tingly feeling in his body finally giving way to waves of pleasure. When he starts to return to alertness, he realises Sanghyuk came as well and is currently lying on top of him. The both of them are panting.

“Well?” Sanghyuk says, chirpy and bright just a minute later. He slips off Hongbin to lie next to him, one hand falling on the small of his back. “Are you gonna tell me who you fed on?”

For his part, Hongbin is exhausted, and doesn’t even flinch at the lie. “A human like me.”

“A human that could see immortals? Did you talk to them? Did you—I mean, did you find out anything interesting? I’ve never felt anything like that energy before.”

“Not really… He recognised me as something different, but he didn’t know how to articulate it. Like how I was when I was human.”

Sanghyuk pulls away, shifting on clothes in one step, fixing his hair in the next. “Damn. That’s annoying. Apparently humans with the sight are rare. Do you know where he lives?”

Hongbin’s already drifting off to sleep—Sanghyuk gets the boon of most of Taekwoon’s energy, now—and sighs happily when Sanghyuk draws the covers over him and lays a hand on his head for a moment. “I know which district,” he mumbles. “Maybe we should go sometime…”

Before he can even finish his sentence, he falls asleep, and thankfully he doesn’t dream of anything at all.

//

When he wakes again a few hours later, he finds Sanghyuk perched on the kitchen bench eating chips and watching the TV. He knows better to offer Hongbin food, now—for the first few years it had been really annoying—but instead reaches behind him for the cup of coffee that’s still warm. Hongbin takes it gratefully, even though it has far too much milk and sugar in it. It’s a nice jolt to his system that he’ll take now that he’s missing a good chunk of energy. “I’m going to Wonshik hyung’s,” he says, and then presses the coffee into Sanghyuk’s hands. “Want to come?”

Sanghyuk wrinkles his nose. “I’ll pass. It will just turn into you two discussing linguistics for hours on end, anyway.”

He’s not wrong though, really, so Hongbin just kisses him gently and turns to leave. But of course Sanghyuk hooks him with an arm around his neck, and then kissing turns to making out, which turns to heavy petting, and Hongbin is loathe to pull himself away but he really wants to talk to Wonshik and so extricates himself from Sanghyuk’s arms gently. “I’ll be back before you know it,” he murmurs, and laughs when Sanghyuk whines. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Sanghyuk sing-songs as the door closes behind him.

//

It’s been a good few months since Hongbin came home—and there’s always a part of him that will refer to it as ‘home’, since for a very long time home was wherever Wonshik was—and he’s immediately hit by the smell of something rotting the moment he lets himself in, thankful at least that Wonshik hasn’t had the foresight to change the door code. He finds the source of the smell the moment he sticks his head into the kitchen, and recoils in horror, eyes wide. “Hyung!” he yells, which brings Wonshik shuffling into the hallway. By the look of him he hasn’t showered in days and is wearing rumpled pyjamas that look like they haven’t been washed in weeks.

“What?” he grunts, and then squints at Hongbin. “Are you okay?”

“What is this!” Hongbin gestures wildly at the sink, which is piled up with blood-stained glasses and even a goblet or two, which is so ridiculous he doesn’t even know how to begin unpacking that. “Why the hell do you look like that?”

“You try teaching yourself Russian. It’s fucking hard.”

But Hongbin’s not done. “And this!” He points an offending finger at the thick swathes of fabric taped over the windows in the living room, thoroughly incensed. “Why the hell have you done this? All the bedrooms are lightproof! And _this—_ ” he waves his hand at perhaps the most heinous thing out of all the mess the apartment has become, which is a hideous red-velvet chaise longue, clearly stolen from the prop room of _Interview with a Vampire._ “What, me moving out suddenly made you become Dracula?”

Wonshik runs a loving hand over the chaise longue. “I thought it would look cool—”

Considering the rest of the apartment looks like it’s been lifted straight from an Ikea showroom, it most certainly doesn’t look cool, and Hongbin cuts him off with a raised hand. “I refuse to sit back and watch my maker slowly turn himself into a vampire stereotype. Or lose his damn mind. Either-or.”

“Cyka blyat,” Wonshik says, which just sounds like noise to Hongbin but must be an insult in Russian.

Two can play at this game. They used to have great fun doing this, even though Hongbin would always lose; the list of languages Wonshik knows is longer than his arm at this point. “Asshole,” Hongbin replies in German.

“Fucker.” French.

“Dipshit.” Mandarin.

“Shithead.” English.

“Bitch.” Japanese.

“Dickhead.” Italian.

“Dirty old man who can’t even clean up after himself,” Hongbin counters in Cantonese, because he’s run out of insults. “Go wash the glasses.” Upon seeing Wonshik’s steely glare, he belatedly adds a “hyung.”

He’s expecting a kickback, but instead Wonshik sighs, turning mournfully towards the sink. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s getting a bit gross.”

Instead of arguing—it’s not just a _bit_ gross—Hongbin follows him into the kitchen and hops up on the bench, much how Sanghyuk was back at their apartment. He can’t eat chips, so he settles for fiddling with a set of keys he finds on the bench next to him instead, wondering how the hell to broach the question. Wonshik can tell there’s something on his mind—what use would their bond be if he couldn’t?—but he just washes the bloody glasses in silence. The splash of the water and gentle clink of glasses provides a soothing soundtrack, and Hongbin rests his head on the cupboard behind him and thinks.

“Do you think immortals can change?”

If Wonshik is surprised by the question, he doesn’t let it show. “Certainly.”

“Okay. But aren’t we… static? Unchanging?” Before Wonshik can interrupt, he rushes on. “And what about true immortals?”

Now _this_ makes Wonshik pause, and he looks up from the goblet he’s scrubbing, eyes sharp. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason, really. I’m just curious.”

For a few minutes, Wonshik continues washing the glasses as he clearly mulls over the question. “I think—I think demons change, when they fall. But I haven’t had much contact with them to really tell. I mean, they go through a physical change. I assume that changes their minds, too… But I don’t know. And angels—no. I think… They change if they fall, so they’re capable of it. They clearly have _some_ free will. But the vast majority just… don’t.” He shrugs and dips the glass in his hands into the rinsing water, seemingly moving on autopilot. “As for us, I don’t think we’re as static as we seem to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“We don’t become… we’re not fixed, a fixed point in time. We’re dead, but not completely. Or not at all. But something animates us. I don’t know if it’s science or magic, but they’re one and the same to someone as old as me.” With a start, Hongbin realises he’s right. In Wonshik’s time the inner machinations of the human body were a mystery. “We’re still _here_. And as long as we’re breathing, we’re capable of change, just like humans.”

Hongbin sighs, beating his head on the cabinets lightly. He wants to ask more, but he can’t, not without revealing his secret, and he knows Wonshik would not react well. Not that any of them would. He expects they would exile him, for lack of a better term, and the thought of being cut off from everything he loves leaves him suddenly breathless so he changes tack. “When angels fall, what happens to them? The physical changes, I mean.” When Wonshik shoots him another sharp look, he shrugs, trying for nonchalant and shooting somewhere into mindless instead. “I’ve never seen a demon.”

“They lose their wings.” Wonshik says this nonchalantly, but Hongbin’s stomach clenches, and he has to force himself to stay still. “Their wings are their source of power, as you know. Some think it’s how they’re connected to God, or Heaven, or whatever. So once that connection is severed…” He draws a bloody, dripping finger across his neck, and Hongbin blanches. “I think they wither away into nothing. But from what I’ve read, and seen, most demons shapeshift them back on. Never white or black, though. Mostly grey. Their auras change, obviously. They don’t have black eyes. Still have fangs.” He looks sideways at Hongbin. “Does that satisfy your curiousity?”

Taekwoon doesn’t have wings. He doesn’t have black eyes. He still has his fangs. But—he has two long wounds weeping blood, and he has no aura at all, and he can’t shapeshift. He’s not a demon, but he’s not an angel. He’s nothing. “Yes,” Hongbin says, even though his curiosity isn’t sated in the slightest. “Are you done?”

Wonshik carefully places the last glass on the drying rack and pulls out the plug, and for a moment when he flashes Hongbin a big smile, complete with fang, he wishes he could take a photo and post it online. _The unglamorous side to blood drinking,_ he’d title it. He gets that far before shaking his head and sliding off the bench. “Come on. Let’s go hunting. It’s been an age since we did that together.”

“But—my Russian study—”

“We can go to Dongdaemun and you can practice on the locals,” Hongbin says, not taking no for an answer and instead curling a hand around Wonshik’s elbow and dragging him to the bedroom. “Get dressed. And don’t wear a fucking cape. You’re not Dracula.”

“Maybe I _want_ to be Dracula,” Wonshik sniffs, but neither of them can hold a straight face for very long.

//

It’s another few days before Hongbin can wrangle some alone time away from Sanghyuk, but he knows he’s in luck when he wakes up one evening to an empty apartment and a text that says _I’ll be back just after dawn <3_. He doesn’t even feel guilty as he slips out of bed and gets dressed hurriedly, heading out so quickly he can still see the faintest tinges of the sun in the sky to the west. He just feels determined, and he holds that feeling close to his chest as he makes the journey towards the little apartment, his head churning with thoughts that refuse to sort themselves into anything manageable.

“Hello?” he calls as he lets himself into the apartment. “What—what the hell are you doing?”

Taekwoon barely looks up from where he’s lying on the sofa. He has apparently gone and got his hands on a TV—Hongbin shudders to think how, if he’s at all honest—and has installed it front and center in front of the sofa. “Hello,” he replies, but it sounds absent at best and completely disinterested at worst.

Hongbin snatches the remote from where it’s lying on Taekwoon’s chest and flicks the TV off. “How the hell did you get a TV?” When Taekwoon opens his mouth to reply, Hongbin silences him with a wave of his hand. “You know what? Don’t tell me. I’d rather not know.”

“Suit yourself, vampire,” Taekwoon sniffs and sits up, stretching so his shirt rides up.

He’s wearing new clothes, too, Hongbin notices; yet again he doesn’t really want to know how and why. The best case scenario is that Taekwoon has somehow figured out how malls work, and the mental image of that is half hysterical and half terrifying so Hongbin would just rather not think about it at all.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Hongbin suggests, because tonight the little apartment feels stifling.

Taekwoon, for his part, doesn’t protest, and they head out in a silence that starts off awkward and becomes companionable the further they walk. It’s a beautiful clear night, the sort which begins with the moon hanging swollen and low in the sky, and Hongbin eyes it. He’s always liked the moon. It’s the one planetary object he can actually see, after all, and it’s been his companion all these decades. He can see Taekwoon watching him as they walk, and Hongbin doesn’t even have to be a mind reader to see the desire to read his thoughts on his face. But he doesn’t touch Hongbin, and he doesn’t ask. It’s fine. It’s even nice, once Hongbin begins to relax.

“I’ve been asking questions,” he murmurs some time later once they’ve settled on the grass in a park. “About you.”

Taekwoon goes very still, the blade of grass he was fiddling with falling out of his hands. It’s the first time, Hongbin realises, that he has smelt like fear. “The nephilim?” he whispers, his pupils so dilated in the night that his eyes look deep and endless.

“Nothing like that.” Hongbin shakes his head. “Just Wonshik hyung. And I didn’t tell him anything.”

“Then what did you ask?” Taekwoon’s voice is more measured as he rips at the grass, but Hongbin doesn’t, can’t, miss how his hands are shaking ever-so-slightly.

“I asked him about demons. I didn’t… I didn’t know if you were one or not—”

“I am not a demon.”

“I know that now, but—”

Leaning forward, Taekwoon grips Hongbin’s chin and jerks his head up viciously so their eyes meet. _“I am not a demon,”_ he says, and there’s some barely-concealed emotion in those words, begging to be released. “I did not fall. I did not turn my back on God. He turned His back on me.”

 _What’s the difference?_ Hongbin thinks, but he calmly removes Taekwoon’s hand from his face, giving it a squeeze that he hopes is comforting for him. “I didn’t mean to imply that you turned your back on your God,” he says evenly. “I was just trying to learn more so we’re not in the dark.”

“Let me guess. Your maker was not able to tell you anything relevant.” Taekwoon’s tone is mocking, his eyes hard, and Hongbin’s chest aches. “He was confused as to why you were asking. And you found out nothing.”

It cuts closer to the truth than Hongbin would like, but he’s not about to let that show. “I found out that he thinks true immortals can change.”

“The only time we change is when we betray God and fall,” Taekwoon hisses.

He looks and sounds so much like his old self that for a moment Hongbin feels as if they’ve taken ten steps backwards. He has rounded in on himself and his hands are curled into claws, twitching like he can feel the weight of his sword in them, and most telling of all he’s still referring to the angels in the first-person plural. This discussion is not going as Hongbin planned, so he scrounges about for something else to talk about, blurting out the first thing that comes to mind.

“Tell me about what happened the first time you met Jaehwan hyung,” he says, and then his eyes widen at his own boldness. That’s exactly the _opposite_ of where he wants the discussion to go.

But instead of rearing up at the mention of Jaehwan’s name, Taekwoon deflates entirely, hanging his head. “Why?”

 _Because when you talk about him it’s obvious you’ve changed,_ Hongbin thinks, but he keeps that to himself. “Because I’m curious. I’ve only ever heard about it through Hakyeon hyung… and he didn’t tell me much.” Just that it was hideous and bloody and confirmed the fact that Taekwoon was every bit the monster they knew he was.

“I can show you,” Taekwoon says quietly, looking up at Hongbin. His hair is hanging in his eyes and his expression is blank, smooth, a sheet of glass that Hongbin somehow wants to smash through. “I could tell you, but it would be easier to show you.”

“So show me.”

Taekwoon shakes his head slowly. “It could rip your mind apart. You were mortal. You cannot comprehend what it is like to—to be this old. To be me.”

He hasn’t forgotten the flash of Taekwoon’s mind. How could he? It was a few seconds at most and opened a rift in him, one he still quite hasn’t worked out how to close. But he wants to know, more than he’s wanted to know anything ever before, and so he just nods. “I can handle it.” When Taekwoon still doesn’t move, he leans forward, insistent. “I _can_. Show me.”

“I warned you,” Taekwoon whispers, and then he places both hands on Hongbin’s head and Hongbin is gone.

//

_“He’s mortal,” the woman says. “Look at his tattoos.”_

_The first thing he feels is the weight of hatred and disgust, burning deep inside of him. It’s not in his heart. It’s somewhere in his core, the very fibre of his being; everything he is is revolted by these pathetic creatures, crouched in the dirt at his feet. The woman is wearing a simple roughspun tunic, her hair falling out of her braid and sticking to her sweaty, terrified face. She is of no concern. He can hear her mortal heart pounding in his ears, but it is just background noise. What is important is the boy next to her, staring up at him with fear written all over his face. He has a braid, too, long hair swinging down his back, but—Hongbin recognises that face—NO—he’s not Hongbin, he’s—Taekwoon, angel, the vengeance and wrath of God. The boy must be in his early twenties, and he has the tell-tale tattoos on his collarbones, hands, feet._

_“We see them,” Taekwoon says._

_“So let him go. He hasn’t done anything. He is innocent.”_

_Adriel hisses, his wings fluttering, and Taekwoon nearly smiles as the nephilim and his mother recoil at the noise. “Wench! Be quiet, whore. He is the very image of original sin.”_

_“I don’t—” the nephilim stutters. “I don’t understand…”_

_One of us fell for you, Taekwoon thinks, and sneers. For_ you _. For a snivelling heap of flesh that has amounted to nothing except the loss of a good angel. The nephilim is trembling all over like a livewire, like he’s about to explode, and some vicious part of Taekwoon that he keeps well-buried craves the taste of his blood._

_Perhaps he has become a monster after doing this for so long._

_But it’s what he was created for._

_If God wants him to be a monster, then a monster he shall be._

_“He will live and he will die,” the woman says. “He has no magic. He is innocent.”_

_Taekwoon nearly doesn’t say anything, the desire for bloodlust is beating in him. But he must tell the truth, and keeping quiet amounts to a lie, so the words burst free of him. “The wench speaks the truth. He reeks of mortality. He will die young. The bind is doing what it should.”_

_They still do not know who or what came up with the bind in the tattoos. They do not know why it works, only that it does; they have observed nephilim that have lived normal mortal lives and died and turned to dust, all with the tattoos binding their powers. Their code states that when faced with a nephilim like this, they observe, nothing more. They are not a danger._

_Except they_ are _, on principle—they are a danger to the order of things, if not a physical danger to angels. They set an example. They should not be allowed to live, but who is Taekwoon to question the way of things? Orders are orders, and Taekwoon always obeys._

_Always._

_“He is_ base!” _Adriel shrieks, his sword trembling. “Are you mad? You know what he’s capable of!”_

_Taekwoon has only been working with Adriel for a century, and he is a curious one. Mercy is not a word he is familiar with. He has always obeyed their orders to leave the tattooed nephilim alone, but Taekwoon can see it is hard for him; the desire for violence beats in him perhaps even more strongly than it does for Taekwoon. He makes the others nervous, Taekwoon can tell, but he has not broken the rules and so there is nothing they can do._

_“Not like this,” Samael says from off to Taekwoon’s right._

_He is correct. This boy is no danger to anyone. He will live and he will die as he should, and they will find prey somewhere else. But this is not good enough for Adriel; the rage rises in him so strong that Taekwoon can feel it, even though they’re not touching. “Enough!” he roars, and Taekwoon’s eyes widen. “I did not come here to let a nephilim slip through our fingers, one masquerading as human or not. This pretense ends today!”_

_Before any of them can move to stop him, he draws his sword across the throat of the woman, killing her easily._

_Taekwoon looks at Adriel in horror. He has become unhinged—he is panting and there is a light in his eyes the likes of which Taekwoon has never seen before. He has disobeyed a direct order. Is he falling?_

_The silence is broken by the boy screaming, and Taekwoon raises his sword, but he is just curled over the body of his mother, sobbing so hard it sounds like his soul is breaking—and then, with a rush of earthen power, it does. The bind fails. Taekwoon sees it happen. The boy’s soul goes from normal human pink to a deep forest green, and when he turns he has those heinous black eyes stolen from his better ancestors and the sword of his twisted birthright, and he drives it into Adriel’s skull. The light in his eyes goes out and he falls to the ground, and Taekwoon can’t—he can’t—he has never seen an angel killed before. Wounded, of course, and he has heard of angels being killed by nephilim. But he has never seen it._

_Adriel was a monster, but he did not deserve to die._

_The others rush forward, and Taekwoon wants to stop them—he_ killed _Adriel!—but he cannot make himself move. All he can do is watch as the nephilim cuts down his brothers one by one, and as he does the rage and revulsion grows inside him, pushing aside everything else. He has never been so disgusted. He has never felt this fury. He has never been faced with a nephilim like this. He has never disobeyed an order._

_“You have doomed yourself,” he snarls, and raises his sword._

_“Shut up,” the nephilim replies, and lifts himself into the air with his wings._

_All the other nephilim died easily, but this one refuses. He is quick and agile, but clumsy still, and within a few minutes Taekwoon has opened a deep cut on his bicep. “You know nothing! Look at you, fumbling.”_

_Before he can strike a killing blow, though, the nephilim blinks out of existence and Taekwoon’s sword slashes through nothing but dead air. Taekwoon is left alone in the clearing, surrounded by the bodies of his brothers and the mortal that brought all this on, and he can do nothing but stand there and pant for a few minutes. The rage in him is so strong it nearly tears him apart. He knows what he should do. He needs to report this, they need to dispose of the bodies of his brothers properly, and then the wrath will descend on this nephilim and he will know pain the likes of which he has never felt before. He will suffer for everything he has done._

_But for a long time, Taekwoon doesn’t move. He doesn’t return to Heaven. He lets the violence flow through him, embracing it, and when he closes his eyes and blinks away, it is not to Heaven. It’s to follow the nephilim’s signature._

_He got away._ He got away. _Nephilim are not meant to escape. Nephilim are meant to die quickly and with no mess, erased from the pages of history where they never should have existed in the first place. They should not run. They should not fight. They should not kill angels. This nephilim should not exist. Taekwoon will make sure he does not. He will avenge his brothers._

_For the first time, Taekwoon disobeys._

//

Hongbin gasps back to himself, and his flailing arms catch Taekwoon in the chin, in the nose. “I can’t—I can’t breathe, I can’t—”

He feels the weight of a sword in his hand, but when Taekwoon grabs his hand it’s empty. He feels the heavy, comforting presence of wings in his back, but when he turns his head they’re not there. His body feels different. Who is he? Where is he? “Hongbin,” Taekwoon says, but it’s his own voice. “You’re Hongbin,” Taekwoon says again, and when Hongbin looks at him it’s like he’s looking into a mirror. “Come back to yourself.”

Come back to himself? Who is he? How can he? Violence, there was—there was a nephilim covered in blood and grinning like something out of a nightmare, and there was—his brothers, dead—his eyes roll back in his head and he slumps forward, his mind a horrible mess of confusing thoughts. He vaguely realises he’s being turned around, arms coming around to pull him close and rock him, and then there’s a soft voice singing in his ear. Oh. That’s nice. He could just listen to that… and drift off…

“Hongbin,” Taekwoon whispers, and then he’s bringing a bleeding wrist to Hongbin’s lips. “Drink.”

Hongbin obeys, and the moment he latches onto the wound and swallows his mind begins to clear. With every drop of Taekwoon’s blood he comes back, swimming through the past, through the layers of violence and hatred that he’s just witnessed, through the utter horror until he opens his eyes again and he is back where he belongs.

He’s sitting with his back resting on Taekwoon’s chest, and one of Taekwoon’s hands is wrapped around his waist, the other being the one he is drinking from. With a grunt he rips his face away and seals the wound with a lick before scrambling forward, away from the circle of Taekwoon’s arms, his skin going cold and shivers running down his spine. “You—”

Taekwoon looks incredibly sad, and he tucks his legs close to his chest and wraps his arms around them, resting his chin on his knees. “I know.”

“You fucking _monster_ ,” Hongbin gasps, hand on his chest as if to feel his heart—which is, of course, not beating. “You’re a fucking _monster_.”

“I know.”

He doesn’t say anything. What can he say? Once again Taekwoon’s honesty has left him speechless, but this time not for the right reasons. He’s never felt a hatred run that deep. It was as if he was _created_ to hate nephilim. And maybe, in a way, he was.

“I was wrong,” Taekwoon says, hoarse and exhausted. The memory has clearly taken as much out of him as it has out of Hongbin. “I was wrong. I should not have—I don’t know. I should have stopped Adriel. I should have walked away. We should have walked away.”

Taekwoon would never have come to this conclusion if he was still an angel, Hongbin knows. Does that make his change of heart disingenuous? Does it matter? What’s done is done, and they can’t go back; not even true immortals can bend time. The real question is if Hongbin believes that his remorse is genuine, but he answers that question as soon as he thinks it. Of course it is.

“It’s fine.”

“It is not fine.” Taekwoon shakes his head and hugs his legs tighter. “I am only just coming to terms with the eons of pain I have caused.” He closes his eyes. “I wish you would let me die.”

“Not happening,” Hongbin snaps, and gets to his feet. He sways there for a moment, off-balance, still recovering from the memory from over a thousand years ago. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

“Home,” whispers Taekwoon, and looks up at Hongbin and his outstretched hand. “Okay. Let’s go home.”

//

Hongbin lives as if he’s in a dream.

His body goes through the motions, but his mind is far away; more often than not it’s with Taekwoon in that tiny apartment, although sometimes it’s centuries in the past. He’s broody and silent, and he finds he is unearthing memories of his human years that he hasn’t thought of for an age. Sanghyuk notices and keeps his distance, although Hongbin can tell he’s hurt.

“Hey,” he murmurs, grasping Sanghyuk’s shoulder and shaking him gently.

Sanghyuk’s fallen asleep on the sofa in front of the TV, and he groans and tries to roll over, but Hongbin doesn’t let him. “Wanna sleep,” he slurs.

“Your work phone is going off.” Hongbin waves it in front of Sanghyuk’s eyes, which are squinting at him suspiciously, or perhaps just tiredly. “Come on. You’re needed.”

“Am not,” Sanghyuk mutters darkly, but he sits up and takes the mug of coffee Hongbin’s prepared for him, taking a swallow before leaning to grab his phone. “Not by you, anyhow.”

He says it like it’s a joke, but Hongbin can tell it’s not, and he puts a hand on Sanghyuk’s knee and squeezes gently. It’s becoming more and more apparent that a solution to the Taekwoon problem is not presenting itself like he thought it would. Any time he can he’s stealing away to the apartment to see him. Often they’ll sit and talk, but sometimes they’ll just watch TV together in companionable silence. Hongbin can tell he’s not used to having a friend, and it’s nice. Taekwoon actually has a wicked sense of humour when he’s not in a horrible black mood, depression weighing over him like a blanket.

Hongbin feels torn between two worlds—the normalcy of his life and the complete insanity of his _other_ life. All those dramas he’s watched where men have mistresses he suddenly understands, even though he isn’t attracted to Taekwoon in the slightest; the weight of the secret presses into him like a knuckle to the waist, a pain that grows and grows with time until all of a sudden it’s unbearable. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what he can do except undulate between Sanghyuk, his sun, and Taekwoon, his moon.

“I need you a lot,” he whispers, and his voice is raw and jagged with emotion and it catches Sanghyuk by surprise. “I couldn’t live without you. I wouldn’t want to.”

For a moment, Sanghyuk looks at him, and Hongbin swears he knows. But then he smiles brightly and leans in to kiss Hongbin, coffee breath and all, and his skin is so warm that Hongbin melts. “You’ll never have to, my love!” he says, and a wave of guilt makes Hongbin’s skin crawl. “But you were right. I have to head out to the studio.”

Even though it’s three in the morning, Hongbin doesn’t protest. Instead he plays nonchalant, sitting in front of the TV and flicking on to a comedy and accepting Sanghyuk’s kiss goodbye. He makes himself wait thirty minutes, which he spends the whole time jiggling his leg up and down and looking at the clock, before he’s out the door and running down the street as fast as his legs can take him. He knows he’s cutting it fine; it takes a good half an hour to get to the apartment, and there’s only about an hour until dawn. He’ll have to be careful.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” Taekwoon says conversationally the moment he steps inside. He’s leaning on the kitchen bench, a book in one hand an an apple in the other, and he looks so human that for a moment Hongbin’s chest swells with pride. He’s _adapting_. This is progress.

Or maybe not, since when Hongbin squints at the book cover he can see it’s written in Latin. “Where did you get that?”

“The library.” Taekwoon pushes off the bench to flop onto the beanbag that he’d insisted Hongbin buy after he saw an ad for one on a late-night TV shopping channel.

“The library has Latin books?” Hongbin asks, sitting on the lounge and immediately picking at a thread. This is a new sofa—he’d taken the old one down to the river and tossed it in, along with the old armchair—and so far it’s remained mostly blood-free. Taekwoon still bleeds out of the wounds, even though they’re stitched up, but it’s manageable, and his body does not seem to want to tear itself apart anymore. His lack of a soul still makes him hard to look at, but Hongbin is almost used to it these days.

“Obviously,” Taekwoon replies, and puts it down to stare at Hongbin. “It is very interesting.”

“What’s it about?”

“The Bible.” He snaps the book shut and tosses it onto the floor next to him. “It is all wrong, of course. Mortals get everything wrong. But still interesting.”

They haven’t spoken about religion since the memory they shared, which was a month ago. Hongbin’s been avoiding bringing it up, and Taekwoon doesn’t seem eager to broach the subject, either; he seems alright tonight, but Hongbin just looks at the bookshelf instead, weighed down with books, and narrows his eyes. “Remember you have to return those. Otherwise it’s stealing.”

“I know,” Taekwoon replies with a tone that indicates he is perfectly aware of what theft is. “I will go tomorrow.”

Taekwoon’s library card is lying on the arm of the sofa, and Hongbin grabs it and brings it close to his face to inspect. The photo is pretty unflattering; it makes Taekwoon look like an East German prison guard, but then, he can’t exactly smile when he’s around mortals. _Jung Taekwoon_ , it says. _1990/11/10_. He’s put this apartment as his address, but Hongbin’s laughing too hard at this point to really focus on that. “This says you’re thirty six!”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“You look about twenty four,” Hongbin’s trying to keep a straight face, but his lips are wobbling dreadfully. Taekwoon looks ridiculous when he’s confused.

“Ah,” he says, and nods. “That’s why she said I looked great for my age.”

“Well, she wasn’t lying. How old _are_ you?”

At this, Taekwoon looks blank. “As old as the universe.”

“I mean in years—”

“I have existed since the first day God breathed life into the universe,” Taekwoon states, slowly and clearly like he’s speaking to a child. “Years have little meaning for me.” Here he pauses, and looks down. “Apart from this past decade.”

Hongbin closes his eyes and takes a deep breath out. Sometimes, when he gets like this, dealing with Taekwoon is exhausting. He talks in riddles and refuses to give straight answers, and it infuriates Hongbin; he can’t tell if he’s doing it because he genuinely doesn’t know, or because he thinks it’s funny. “So… Give me an estimate. A million years old?”

Taekwoon leans forward, staring straight into Hongbin’s eyes. “How old is the universe?”

Hongbin doesn’t know. Billions and billions of years, probably. He finds it hard to believe Taekwoon is billions of years old, and he doesn’t know if he wants to know the truth. That makes the fact that they are both sitting here, in 2027, even more ridiculous. What a child he must seem to Taekwoon, even though to mortals he is impossibly old. How can they hope to understand each other?

They are different in utterly every way.

For a while, they sit in silence. Hongbin is slowly digesting the fact that Taekwoon is as old as the universe, and Taekwoon—well, he doesn’t know what Taekwoon is thinking. He could be solving algebra in his head for all Hongbin knows. It doesn’t matter. “Mortals live and die in a blink of your eye,” he murmurs under his breath, but Taekwoon hears. “Even immortals…”

“Are temporary. Everything is temporary. Except us.” Taekwoon’s voice has taken on a weird deep timbre, tinged by more than just sadness. There’s grief there too. “We are eternal.”

He can feel dawn’s approach, and stands up abruptly, his skin crawling. He stayed too long. It’s a good excuse to get away from Taekwoon, who’s gone into one of his strange moods. Hongbin can practically see it written all over him. “I’ll see you soon, Taekwoon. I gotta go.”

“Hongbin,” says Taekwoon, shaking himself out of his stupor and standing up. He seems unsure; he’s slouched over, eyes trained at the ground. “I wanted… I wanted to tell you something.”

“Okay,” Hongbin says, and waits.

For a long time Taekwoon doesn’t say anything, and Hongbin nearly turns to go. But then he takes a step closer and looks at Hongbin, and he looks so torn that Hongbin doesn’t move an inch. “Do you remember when you asked what was happening to you, and I told you it was the power of my blood inside you? Changing you?” Hongbin nods slowly, and he continues. “And I told you there was a secret that I would take to the grave.”

Hongbin stays very, very still as Taekwoon steps closer still, not even blinking, not daring to. “I remember.”

“I want to tell you what it is,” Taekwoon whispers, and reaches out and takes Hongbin’s hand.

Even though Hongbin has told Taekwoon not to do this a million fucking times, even though he avoids touch like the plague, Taekwoon reads his mind anyway. He feels that ghostly soulless presence brush through his head, sifting through his most recent memories—his guilt with Sanghyuk earlier, the way he’d woken up and stared at the ceiling for an hour before getting up, his deep dreamless sleep, Sanghyuk kissing him goodnight, Wonshik laughing as they hunted—with a speed that leaves him breathless. Just like always he feels helpless to stop Taekwoon from taking whatever he pleases, even though he knows all he has to do is ask and Taekwoon will stop. But his memories flip past faster and faster until Taekwoon finds what he’s looking for—

_“No, I didn’t mean like that. You don’t have to be sorry.” Sitting up, Sanghyuk pats Hongbin on the knee somewhat comfortingly. “I just meant—I don’t know. I wish you could see the sun with me, one day.”_

_“Me too,” Hongbin murmurs, sitting up as well and wrapping his arms around his legs._

He gasps at the flash of the recent past, but Taekwoon’s not done. Still he goes searching, back, back, flipping through every single moment of Hongbin’s ordinary, mundane life for the past three years until he settles on another memory—

_“Hongbin?” Sanghyuk yells, and then, after a moment, “Hongbin hyung? It’s nearly dawn.”_

_“Coming,” Hongbin calls back softly, but he doesn’t move from where he’s standing on their balcony._

_His hands are wrapped tightly around the railing, and every instinct he has is screaming at him to get inside to the safety of the dark, but he ignores them and does not move. The sky is awash with the colours of pre-dawn, yellows and oranges not fully developed, a teaser of what’s to come and what Hongbin can never see. He doesn’t want to die, he knows, he just, he just wants to see. That’s all._

_That’s all._

_“Hongbin!” Sanghyuk shrieks as the sun erupts from the horizon, and then he’s grabbing Hongbin by the wrist and dragging him back inside, to the safety of the hallway and its shadows. “What the fuck are you doing! Have you lost your fucking mind? Were you trying to kill yourself? Jesus, what’s wrong with you? Hongbin, answer me!”_

_“Sorry,” Hongbin mutters, and lets himself be dragged down the hallway. “I just—I don’t know what came over me, I’m sorry—”_

_But he hadn’t got to see._

“I’d forgotten about that,” he murmurs when he surfaces into the present again, Taekwoon’s hand still wrapped tightly around his. “Sanghyuk was so angry at me he didn’t speak to me for a week. He nearly checked me into what he called vampire mental hospital, which was really just telling Wonshik hyung. I’m glad he didn’t.”

Taekwoon doesn’t reply, just delves further deep still, and Hongbin begins to feel dizzy at the years rushing past like this. He skips neatly past that horrible battle on the rooftop, and he skips past the beach, and Hongbin fights the horror rising in his chest as he realises what he must be looking for. It’s a memory he’s kept buried out of shame, and he starts to try to pull away. “No, Taekwoon, don’t—”

_Pain the likes of which he has never felt and the likes of which he will never feel again erupts in his heart and he crumples to the ground, screaming like a banshee. He claws at his own chest, trying to get the pain to stop, but the moment he does he realises it’s not his pain. Wonshik hyung. His maker._

_“Where?” Hakyeon roars, grabbing him by the face to shake him viciously. He looks rabid, panicky, and Hongbin wants to scream again. “Where is he?”_

_He tries to focus through the waves of pain radiating through his body, but it’s nearly impossible to do so. When he closes his eyes he gets a flash of the sky. “The roof,” he gasps, and delves deep into the bond between them. “A… Wait… I think it’s your place.”_

_Hakyeon is gone before he even finishes speaking, leaving Sanghyuk to grab his hand. When Hongbin opens his eyes, he can see, blearily, that Sanghyuk is crying. “What’s happening?”_

_“Wonshik hyung—stabbed,” he chokes out, and rolls onto his front. Every movement sends another wave of pain radiating through his body—how does it feel so real? His body is fine, but he can feel his blood pouring out of him, and when he looks down there’s nothing. “We have to go. The sun—”_

_But they don’t make it in time._

_Sanghyuk has Hongbin’s left arm around his shoulders and is supporting his body weight as they hobble towards Hakyeon’s apartment painfully slowly. Hongbin has tears streaming down his face now, both from the pain and from the fear, but most of all from the knowledge that they are not going to get inside in time._

_They run, but still the sun rises, and for a few seconds—a few brief, blissful seconds—Hongbin’s right arm and the right side of his face are exposed to its rays before they make it to the safety of the lobby. Sanghyuk jabs the button for the lift, but it doesn’t come fast enough, and he starts towards the stairs before realising Hongbin isn’t following and turns. “Hyung?” he says, and gasps when he sees the red and slightly blistered skin of Hongbin’s face, which Hongbin is currently touching in awe. “Are you okay?”_

_“Yeah,” Hongbin murmurs, and shoves past him for the stairs. “I’ll be fine. Let’s go.”_

_He doesn’t tell Sanghyuk how much it hurt, and he certainly doesn’t tell him how good it felt, either. He puts it out of his mind, and he tries to forget._

“You fucking _asshole_ ,” Hongbin snaps, and pulls his hand away. He’s ashamed of the tears blurring his vision, both at the pain of the memory and of the humiliation wreathing him, and wipes them away. He snarls when his hand comes away bloody and whirls. “You’re such a fucking—”

But Taekwoon moves fast. He blocks Hongbin’s way. “Wait.”

“I can’t stay here,” Hongbin replies, panic rising in his chest. Through the window he can clearly see the sky lightening. “The sun’s about to come up. Let me go—”

“Drink,” Taekwoon murmurs, and then before Hongbin can move he slashes at his own throat with his fingernails, viciously and without flinching. The wound is not deep, but Hongbin is thirsty. He takes a step closer of his own accord. “Drink. I can give you what you want.”

“I don’t—I can’t—” Hongbin stutters, but he doesn’t resist when Taekwoon pulls him close, cradling his head to his neck, his other arm holding him in what is almost an embrace. He doesn’t even move when Hongbin sinks his fangs in, unable to resist, knowing this very may well be the death of him but too far gone on the taste of Taekwoon’s blood to care.

And then the sun rises, bathing them both in its rays, and as Taekwoon’s arms tighten around him Hongbin looks directly at it, and he does not burn.

He does not burn.

//

They step into the sunlight together, not touching but Taekwoon shadowing Hongbin’s every move. He holds up a hand, looks at it; is he really that pale? Is this warmth—it settles over his skin like a cloak, tangible and real—what mortals get to feel every day? How did he ever take it for granted?

 _Sanghyuk_ , he thinks, and his heart breaks. He wants to run home and share this with him. He wants to see what Sanghyuk looks like framed in liquid gold. He wants to fuck under the heat of the sun, delirious and high because they can, but as soon as he thinks this he realises he cannot.

To reveal this secret would mean revealing all the others.

“How?” he whispers, turning to Taekwoon.

He looks different, in the sun. Softer, maybe, or more human. Night is as much his domain as it is Hongbin’s, but this light is flattering on him.

“This is what angel blood can do. It gives vampires the power to walk in the sun. Now you know why I could not tell you.” He looks away and touches the wound on his neck.

“Vampires would go mad for this,” Hongbin whispers, and turns back to the sun. He wants to stare at it until it sets, and then do it all again tomorrow. He is addicted. “Some have. It’s… not uncommon, to hear of vampires meeting the dawn. It’s always sad.” He shudders; the news always sent a ripple of sadness through the vamp community. Vamps killing each other in territory squabbles is commonplace, but throwing away immortality just to touch the sun again—well, it’s tragic. “How long does this last?”

“I don’t know.”

There’s a noise as Taekwoon turns and heads back inside, but Hongbin isn’t paying attention. Staring directly at the sun like this should fry his eyeballs. He should be _dead_. But for the first time in a hundred years, the warmth he smells on Sanghyuk’s skin sometimes is his for the taking, and he is not going to waste a moment of it.

“Look,” Taekwoon says, and when Hongbin turns he sees that Taekwoon has pulled the bathroom mirror off the wall and is holding it up. “Look at yourself.”

He looks alive. The sunlight doesn’t wash out his skin, it makes it glow; when he wipes the blood away from under his eyes he could almost pass for human, save his glowing red irises. The sun behind him sets his hair on fire, and while he’s never really thought himself particularly attractive before, now he sways a little closer and touches his reflection. He’s beautiful.

 _I want Sanghyuk to see me like this,_ he thinks, but at the same time he knows it cannot be. Instead he looks up at Taekwoon, whose expression is unreadable over the mirror, and nods. “Thank you for giving me this.”

Taekwoon doesn’t reply.

//

Hongbin stays outside all day, doing nothing in particular and doing everything at once, just amazed at the simple fact that he can—and when night falls he crawls back inside and sleeps, just as a human would.

Sanghyuk is hysterical when he finally returns home, and as he yells and screams Hongbin just sits silently, feeling the distance between them grow every second. He brought it on himself, he knows, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“Do you not love me anymore? Is that it?” Sanghyuk whispers when Hongbin crawls into bed at dawn, his skin itching at not being out in the sun even though he knows he needs to keep up appearances. “Do you want to break up?”

“No!” Hongbin gasps, and reaches for Sanghyuk only to have him move away. “God, no, Sanghyuk. You’re my world. I mean it when I say I can’t live without you.”

“Then act like it,” Sanghyuk sniffs, and with horror Hongbin realises he’s crying.

He pulls Sanghyuk close even when he resists, holds him until he goes limp and clings close, and lets him cry and cry. He has never felt more worthless than this. Taekwoon has changed him; he has allowed himself to be changed. Sanghyuk is his universe—but Taekwoon needs him. They both need him. And somehow he needs them both, in hugely different ways.

“I love you,” he whispers into Sanghyuk’s hair as he sleeps. “I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you.”

He knows he needs to fix this, but he does not know how, and he lets the waves of helplessness carry him gently into sleep even as part of him cries out for the gentle caress of the sun once more.

//

He does not hear them coming.

His world is narrowed down into Taekwoon, into _getting_ to Taekwoon, and so he doesn’t hear them come up from behind him, and he doesn’t react in time when one of them jumps on his back, slamming him into the ground painfully. He’s on his feet so fast his world spins—oh, to have this true immortal power—but he is grabbed by the hair and flung into the nearest wall.

It doesn’t hurt, but as he lies there the reality of his situation sets in, and he realises what a colossal mistake he’s made.

Jiho’s at the forefront of a veritable pack of vampires, a few whose faces Hongbin has seen before. There’s eight of them, all hissing and baring their fangs at him, and of course it’s only now that he remembers he has not been patrolling his territory at all. For the past two months.

They are here to kill him.

“Opportunistic bastard—” he snarls, getting to his feet, but he can’t continue because they all come.

He fights, because what else can he do? But even true immortal blood cannot make up for the fact that there are eight of them and one of him. He breaks an arm, only to have his ribs kicked so savagely he feels his sternum snap. He bites someone’s neck so brutally he rips their throat out, but then his arms are wrenched behind his back and they pop out of their sockets and he screams, wild and panicking. Sanghyuk, he’s going to die and Sanghyuk is never going to know the truth—oh _God_ what has he done—

“You fucking stupid cunt I’m going to rip your fucking face off,” he shrieks as Jiho approaches. “You don’t know who you’re fucking with—”

“Shut him up,” Jiho snarls, and someone rips out his tongue.

He nearly drowns in the blood filling his mouth, and the world starts to go fuzzy around the edges. They’re going to—oh god, they’re going to tear his head off, that’s the only sure fire way to kill a vampire besides a stake or the sun— _no_ , he fights, but even though he still has strength, even though his wounds are still healing, there are eight of them. He can’t do anything.

He can’t do anything.

 _Sanghyuk_ , he thinks, and wails as Jiho kicks him in the head so hard his neck breaks and he loses all sensation. He can’t move. He’s paralysed as Jiho approaches, fangs bared, and he can’t even close his eyes so he doesn’t have to see. _Sanghyuk I love you Sanghyuk I’m sorry Sanghyuk I love you Sanghyuk I’m sorry—_

There’s a blur behind Jiho, a figure moving quickly, and hope rises in his chest for a brief moment—Wonshik has come! He must have felt the pain through the bond and—

And then he smells it.

Taekwoon stands there, and he has ripped his stitches open. The blood flows down his legs, pooling at his feet, and the vampires’ heads snap around to focus on him, their mission forgotten. Hongbin thinks of the hunger he felt that first night, and realises what’s about to happen.

 _RUN,_ he begs Taekwoon silently with his eyes, _RUN THEY’RE GOING TO KILL YOU_ —but then, of course, Taekwoon knows and the horror of what is about to happen dawns on him. _Don’t do this, don’t do this for me, you can’t do this, not for me. Run, get away, don’t do it, please, not for me, you can’t, TAEKWOON, NO, NO YOU CAN’T!_

But Taekwoon smiles, and he raises his arms as they descend on him, palms up, repenting. Hongbin sees him go down. He looks more at peace than he has ever looked before.

//

He closes his eyes.

It’s only a few moments after he does this that he realises he can twitch his fingers, and over the sounds of, of a body being torn apart, he moans as his tongue grows back. He does not even want to know how. Perhaps, after drinking so much of Taekwoon’s blood, he can’t be killed.

He gets to his knees.

Sternum: broken. Arms: dislocated. His body has healed his spine, but the rest is happening slowly.

He stands.

Taekwoon screams.

Hongbin moves in.

He has the advantage, because they are focused on nothing except the blood, and they don’t pay any attention to him. His left arm starts working the moment he grabs the first vampire and snaps its neck clearly, and keeps twisting. The others don’t even turn. One, two, three. He kills three in quick succession and looks down, which is a mistake, because the state that Taekwoon is in nearly makes him vomit. Four, five. His body screams with the efforts of breaking necks. He doesn’t kill these two. Let them be a lesson. Six, seven. These he leaves alive. Eight.

Jiho.

He kicks him, grinds his face into the dirt, nearly stomps on the back of his head but breaks his femur instead, kicks his hip until it shatters. He wails, but he has not ingested enough blood to heal from that—those are two huge bones. “Mercy,” he begs, but Hongbin isn’t listening.

Somehow, Taekwoon is still alive, even though he’s barely in one piece. Hongbin can hear his heart, faint over the sounds of the other vampires around him, but as he takes a step closer it falters. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to _do_ , and sinks down next to Taekwoon, reaching for his hand. “You shouldn’t have done that for me,” he snarls, exhausted. “Not for me. You need to live.”

Taekwoon doesn’t squeeze his hand back. Instead, he stops breathing.

Hongbin considers lying down and joining him. It would almost be poetic, the two of them dying here on this moonless night. But Sanghyuk’s face flashes into his mind and it gives him the strength to scoop Taekwoon into his arms, pulling him close and running as fast as he can (which isn’t very fast at all), running with no destination, just running.

“You can’t die,” he pants, his feet thudding on the asphalt. “You can’t die. You changed. You’ve—I won’t let you die. Not for me. Not tonight.”

He ends up in front of a familiar building, but he does not have time to examine the consequences as he steps inside the lift and lets it spirit them upwards towards the heavens. He has made his choice. He made his choice when he refused to kill Taekwoon, and now it is time he lived with the repercussions of that choice.

 _Doing the right thing hurts,_ he thinks as he stumbles blearily down the hallway, bumping into the walls. He is really about to lose everything he loves for this non-angel, for the right thing, for mercy and for forgiveness.

Is it worth it?

Always.

He knocks on the door with his head, bashing it so hard his teeth rattle, and he hears footsteps crossing the floor and alarmed voices before it’s swinging open. Hongbin does not have time to examine the expressions on Jaehwan and Hakyeon’s faces as they take in the sight in front of them: Taekwoon, torn-apart, bloody, limp and empty, and Hongbin holding him.

“Help us,” he begs.

 

 _I have seen eternity, I swear. But it was in a dream and in the morning all was gone._  
_-Wolsey_

**Author's Note:**

> I suspect some of you may have seen this coming—not this exactly but this sort of direction—but i hope at least it was sort of unexpected? idk. life is kicking the shit out of me recently (when is it not?) but i'm very proud of this chapter and i hope you guys like it. i wanted to explore taekwoon's side of the story, in a way, and i hope i have written it in a way that you can understand his motivations, if not agree with them. i have always been sympathetic towards him—i have a Thing for villains—and now i hope some of you are sympathetic towards him as well :D
> 
> the quote in chapter two is from the season 1 finale of the tudors, in what i think is a beautifully moving scene starring sam neill as cardinal wolsey. every time i watch that scene i cry like a baby and his death monologue somehow fits taekwoon, i think. this is the full quote:
> 
> _Lord, we have not spoken as long or as often as we should. I've often been about other business. If I wanted forgiveness, I should ask for it, but for all I have done and for all I am yet to do there can be no forgiveness. And yet, I think I am not an evil man, for evil men pray louder, seek penance and think themselves closer to Heaven than I am. I shall not see its gates, Lord, nor hear your sweet words of salvation. I have seen eternity, I swear, but it was in a dream and in the morning all was gone. I know myself for what I am and I throw my pour soul upon your forgiveness in the full knowledge that I deserve none._
> 
> there's probably only another two chapters of incubus to go before it's Done, with a capital D, and I really don't know how I feel about that. sad, but also happy, in a way? idk. it will be interesting. stay tuned.
> 
> comments are, as always, appreciated ♡ (and feel free to yell at me on [curiouscat](http://curiouscat.me/hakyeonni))
> 
> ps for those wondering taekwoon is approximately 13 billion years old


End file.
